Into the Metaverse: Making the Case for a Virtual Workspace

As the technology and hardware improve, augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR)-based solutions will become critical components for businesses, including those offering employee access to virtual collaboration spaces.

Workers could power on their headsets anywhere in the world and be fully immersed in that work environment while having the benefit of networking and connecting with others as if they were in a typical office.

A recent study from KPMG indicated these technologies could provide new business opportunities to meet and connect or network and help bridge the gap between remote and physical collaboration.

However, the infrastructure required by virtual reality — from hardware such as headsets to backend systems — presents challenges for businesses, and there are important inclusion and data security issues that remain to be addressed before adoption becomes widespread.

Billy Huang, CEO and co-founder of Insomnia Labs, says while there is a lot of hype around metaverse and VR, the current core use case for it is for work meetings.

"For example, the most recent partnership between Microsoft and Meta mostly impacts office and remote work," he says. "However, I do believe that the metaverse is still not here yet, from a tech standpoint, and there is much more work to be done."

Related:DevOps Teams to Play Big Role in Tackling Metaverse Challenges

Benefits for HR in a Distributed Workforce World

EY Americas' emerging technologies leader Matt Barrington points out the metaverse could give HR leads around the globe an ability to reinforce company culture and establish shared values by building consistent shared employee experiences around the globe.

"For instance, all global employees could benefit from consistent onboarding experiences if part of the onboarding is done in the metaverse where shared practices, corporate values, and mission get reinforced consistently for new employees, regardless of which location or which market they serve," he says.

This could be particularly useful for organizations that are growing very rapidly in different locations or that have had to replace many people in their workforce.

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