Finding Common Ground

A two-part VR title about discrimination in a customer-facing workplace, and what a team is expected to do about it. Built from a real incident, with a world-leading Australian bank.

Across the counter, a reply still to choose.

Answering a customer across the counter.

First you feel it. Then you decide what the team does.

Part one gives you the discrimination first-hand, from the side of the person it lands on, in the kind of exchange that happens at a counter or a desk every day.

Part two hands you the proactive behaviour a team is expected to show, and lets you practise it before a real customer is standing there.

What changes for your organisation

A policy tells staff what the standard is. This title lets a whole team rehearse meeting it, in the same exchange, and talk about it afterwards.

A team leader discusses an escalation with a colleague in an office. — The handover where the team decides next steps.

Expected behaviour becomes practised behaviour

Customer-facing teams carry the organisation's standard in every exchange. Finding Common Ground makes that standard something people have done, in the headset, rather than something they have read.

The debrief afterwards is where the team agrees what it will do the next time.

One exchange, told in two parts

The scenes follow an exchange that actually happened, reshaped so a learner can stand inside it and then choose what to do.

A retail customer waits for a reply across a counter, seen through the headset. — Part one: the exchange, from the side it lands on.

A duty manager listens to a retail customer on a shop floor. — Part two: the response a team is expected to give, practised.

"For instance, our simulations allow users to experience what it feels like to be discriminated against, to navigate life in a wheelchair, or to practice de-escalation techniques in response to microaggressions."

Simon Lowe, PTR's CEO, mid-sentence at a lectern. Simon Lowe
CEO, People Tech Revolution. The Cusp of a Revolution, Global Best Practice Group, October 2024

How a session runs

Each part runs between 4 and 10 minutes, and PTR delivers Library sessions with a facilitated group debrief. Some features need an internet connection; the Library collects no personal data, though it may collect app-improvement and analytics data.

A facilitator briefs two participants in a workshop room. — The briefing, before the headset goes on.

Participants swap positions during a staged roleplay. — Swapping sides, so both parts get felt.

Three people compare the choices they made in a VR scenario. — Comparing choices in the debrief.

Built with an Australian bank

Finding Common Ground was designed in collaboration with a world-leading Australian bank, based on a real-life experience of discrimination. PTR's published materials describe the partner only in those terms.

A front-desk supervisor helps an older guest at a hotel reception. — The same kind of front desk exchange.

A real incident, kept real

The bank brought the incident; PTR brought the build. Keeping the exchange close to what happened is what makes the practice transfer to a real counter.

Like Everyday Inclusion and Speak to Me Normally, the title was originally created with Equal Reality, a subsidiary of People Tech Revolution, and now sits within the PTR VR Library.

Where the same exchange happens

A shop floor, a collection counter, a contact centre: customer-facing work puts the same moment in front of different people. These are the rooms PTR builds it in.