Government and public sector training, no headset needed
A council event, a reception desk and a classroom run the same experience on a headset, a tablet, a phone or a desktop, so no visitor and no officer is left out.
The moment
The counter that turns aggressive at ten to five
A customer service officer at a council counter has a man in front of her whose permit has been refused, a queue behind him watching, and a security guard on his break. What she says in the next ten seconds decides whether he leaves, shouts, or comes back tomorrow with a complaint about her. Nobody has ever let her practise it.
Work in this sector
Central Coast Council: disability awareness
Central Coast Council commissioned a VR experience as part of its disability access and inclusion strategy. Co-designed with the Council’s Access and Inclusion Reference Group, it shows a beach and a shopping centre from inside the disability. Central Coast Council’s experience has run across the community more than 200 times, and teacher training, council staff training and CSIRO-facilitated sessions have incorporated it. The project began before the Disability Royal Commission’s 2023 final report.
recommendations from the Disability Royal Commission's 2023 final report, which found community attitudes, not physical access alone, a fundamental driver of poor outcomes for people with disability. Final Report, 2023
"The experience was an incredible eye opener into the difficulties faced by people with a disability to engage in everyday activities"
Working in government or the public sector?
Advance Queensland
Supporting the Mater pilot
Advance Queensland, the Queensland Government’s innovation program, awarded People Tech Revolution $40,000 to help build the Mater Education VR pilot, Speaking with Good Judgement: Through the Looking Glass. Mater Education contributed a further $110,000 through its partnership with Advance Queensland’s Corporate Innovation Network. The pilot let hospital staff practise psychologically safe feedback conversations inside VR recreations of real Mater environments.
- Read the Mater Education case study
- Healthcare and medical
- Advance Queensland’s story about the project
"VR can preemptively address these issues by providing immersive induction programs where workers can learn about the cultural nuances of their new environment before they even set foot in it. They can practice interacting with colleagues from different backgrounds, getting a feel for what is considered respectful or inappropriate in that specific context."
Simon Lowe
CEO, People Tech Revolution, on preparing city workers for postings in rural health services. The Cusp of a Revolution, Global Best Practice Group, October 2024
In common
What our public-sector work has in common
One is a local council partnership that commissioned public-facing training for its community. The other is a Queensland Government-supported healthcare pilot. Both were delivered on more than one device, so no visitor needed a headset. The Australian Government’s own Digital Inclusion Standard now makes multi-channel access a formal requirement.
If you work for a council
Local government has a page of its own
The counter, the home visit and the depot gate are written for councils separately, along with what Central Coast Council did and who in a council usually takes it forward. Councils and local government.
The four conversations
The conversations frontline staff ask us for
The counter that turns aggressive, the home visit that escalates, the disclosure nobody was ready for, and de-escalation itself. Staff rehearse them in customer aggression training and VR de-escalation training, with a person who reacts and a facilitator afterwards.
Before the doors open
Before the doors open, and after they close
A service centre is busy for part of its day. The rest is when staff work through the exchange they know is coming: a written run between customers, at the same screen the work is done on, then out loud from the waiting area, in the chair the person receiving the decision will sit in. A refusal has to be delivered clearly and kindly in one breath, and written practice is where staff find those words.
More moments
Counters, doorways, community halls and a depot yard
The rest of a public-sector day has its own hard conversations: the depot handover, the digital skills class where one person is lost, the bushfire briefing to a colleague who thinks it will not happen here. Each is a scenario your staff can run before the shift.
Through the headset
A doorway, an emergency planning room, a community hall
Inside the headset the resident, the incident controller or the objector is in front of you, waiting. The older woman in her doorway, the incident controller who needs a decision now, the two residents in the community hall: each answers what your staff say, not what they meant to say.
Co-designed
Scenarios shaped with the people who will run them
A policy officer practises at the lectern. A service officer rehearses at the airport counter. A journalist puts the hard question with a facilitator beside the interviewee. Each scenario was co-designed with the people who run it, in the room they run it in.
Working in government or the public sector?
Sources and further reading
The standard, the report and the government story the copy above draws on.
Digital Inclusion Standard
The requirement that public services reach people through more than one channel.
Final Report, Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability
Community attitudes, not physical access alone, as a fundamental driver of poor outcomes.
People Tech Revolution’s virtual reality training package for Mater Hospital
The Queensland Government’s own story of the Mater pilot and its funding.
