Meetings in the Metaverse: The Future of Remote Work
While remote work was already becoming an increasingly popular choice for many employers and employees, the Covid-19 pandemic undoubtedly caused a huge shift in how we view working remotely.
Working from your home, your summer home in Aspen, or on a beach in Bali used to be viewed as a privilege.
Now, employees tend to have the upper hand when it comes to choosing the location where they work, and many companies have been more or less forced to become much more flexible to attract and retain top talent.
With all of the benefits that remote work offers, the question of establishing and maintaining work culture keeps being brought up again and again. The social aspect of working in an office is something managers often insist is a crucial element for keeping employees happy, while many employees insist they are happiest working from their couch in their pajamas.
Enter: The Metaverse
If you believe the metaverse is a hazy mix of virtual reality, augmented reality, and real life, you are essentially right.
While Mark Zuckerburg keeps promising that his version of the metaverse is just on the horizon, Meta is far from the first company to dabble in creating a virtual world for its customers. Second Life was among the first popular platforms where people could create avatars, explore digital worlds, and interact with others in real time — and it’s been around for nearly twenty years!
Having the ability to interact with friends or strangers in a simulated reality is nothing new, but for the most part, these experiences were limited to purely fun social exchanges. So far, we have not seen this kind of technology used for remote working or conferences, at least, not in a big way.
Since remote work is here to stay, for better or for worse, it only makes sense that companies are searching for new ways to keep their people connected and engaged, and combining virtual meetings with virtual reality may be just the way to do it.
The Current State of Digital Meetings
Whether your company already had a remote-friendly business model or you had to scramble to change your working habits on March 13th, 2020, the default tools of remote work tend to include Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.
These video-conferencing tools share many of the same features; the ability to host meetings, share a screen, chat virtually, and mute other people, if you have the guts to do that.
Virtual meetings are basically the same as in-person meetings, right? Staring directly at yourself and your colleagues simultaneously, sometimes for multiple hours a day, is actually quite unnatural.
Zoom fatigue is totally real and can cause even more stress than an office or coffee shop meeting. This is because many people often feel the need to overperform, as it’s considerably harder to read social cues in this kind of virtual format.
For example, why do so many people feel the need to wave goodbye at the end of virtual meetings, when that would be a strange thing to do when gathered around a conference table? We want to ensure that our friends, bosses, and coworkers know that we found the meeting valuable, since there won’t be an opportunity to gather around the water cooler later on.
So, we strain to exhibit positive body language as much as we can, which can be effective for maintaining your reputation at work and also downright exhausting.
A New Kind of Virtual Meeting
Have you ever attended a metaverse meeting? Or been invited to one? The technology already exists, and it’s currently being offered by companies like 6Connex, Blockchain App Factory, and even Second Life.
What kind of benefits does the metaverse offer over virtual meetings and in-person meetings?
The ability to be represented by an avatar
Attending a metaverse meeting or conference would negate the need for dress pants, just like a normal remote meeting. You also wouldn’t have a need for a blazer, makeup, a comb, or really anything else! Users can design their own avatars to represent themselves how they actually want to be represented, which sounds pretty nice.
It could be beneficial for those with disabilities
Conferences and job fairs can be rewarding experiences, but they can also be very taxing. For anyone who has trouble standing or walking for hours at a time, having a virtual “you” take over could make a world of a difference and lead to more opportunities.
It also takes the pressure off of anyone who struggles to make eye contact, offer a firm handshake, or any other minute details that other professionals are judging you for, whether they realize it or not.
The Downside of the Metaverse
Naturally, there are also downsides to utilizing this kind of technology in the workplace, otherwise, we’d be seeing it everywhere.
Anyone can be anyone in the Metaverse
In the same way that Ted from accounting could make his avatar appear a little bit taller and have just a little bit sharper of a jawline, it would be easy for much more sinister things to be falsified as well.
While pretending to be someone you’re not in a casual game setting is fun, it could obviously have very negative implications in a work environment, especially if sensitive information is shared with the wrong person.
Maybe the metaverse will become a more popular meeting place when VR headsets have passwords or face ID.
It takes us even further out of reality
The Matrix, Ready Player One, and even Wall-E have all done their part in warning us about the potential dangers of false realities. Still, it’s worth mentioning that the feelings of isolation and loneliness that can come with remote work could be further heightened by using virtual avatars.
As tough as it may be to admit, the manager that continuously asks everyone to have their cameras on during meetings has a point. Seeing familiar faces and creating genuine connections with others helps foster a positive work culture, or at the very least, helps us feel a little more connected to the people around us.
In Conclusion
Virtual reality is a cool trend that is still unfolding, and it’s impossible to tell yet just how much it will change the way we learn, work, and socialize. While it has its benefits, there is still a long way to go technology-wise before people will feel the need to begin incorporating it into their lives.
But who knows? By 2025 it may be normal to get a Slack message that says “meet me in the metaverse!”
