Walmart is using this technology to ensure Boiseans’ Black Friday stays merry

It’s still mid November, but Walmart already is putting its associates right into the middle of Black Friday madness — sort of.

Walmart is using virtual reality technology to train associates nationwide to prepare for the influx of holiday shoppers. One of Walmart’s training academies is at the store at 8300 W. Overland Road in Boise. There, workers use an Oculus VR headset to learn about customer service and compliance.

In one training module, workers get a virtual replay of a real-life Black Friday incident that happened at one of Walmart’s stores last year. “Who has keys?” yells one associate. The trainee wearing the VR goggles turns to his left to reveal an associate desperately trying to find a set of keys he should have had, while another associate leaves his post to confront the stressed associate.

“The Black Friday event, we can talk about it only so much in a classroom type setting,” said Matt Farnworth, who holds the title Facilitator One at the Boise Walmart Academy. “Until you really put on the headset and see what it’s actually like to be involved in that event, you just have a basic understanding [of] what’s going on with that event.”

The keys module is one of 40. Black Friday is only one of the training topics.

“Me, as a new associate, who’s never been through a Black Friday event, if I can know more about that event going in to it, then I’m better equipped to make better decisions, better able to take care of my customers … rather than learn on the fly,” Farnworth said.

Since 2016, Walmart has rolled out 198 operational Walmart Academies across the nation, training more than 374,000 associates, the company said.