Working on an Island? Sounds Crazy but Possible at oVice đ
Passion Republic interview about using oVice as a virtual office
âI miss working at the officeâ.
Itâs hard to believe that office employees are saying that, but itâs understandable regarding the struggles many remote workers are still dealing with when working from home for the past year.
Maintaining a strong integrated remote team can be a tough job for many. Equally important, smooth communication is tricky to achieve if youâre only using a chat-based app or an online meeting app which can limit the types of interaction between team members and can also be cumbersome compared to how communication takes place at a physical workplace.
We talked about this with Passion Republic, who started using oVice as a virtual office tool to increase team productivity while working from home, and we asked a few questions about their experience using oVice.
Interview company: Passion Republic
Industry: Gaming
Number of oVice users: 120 members in total.
Interviewee: Mr. Mel Law â Studio Art Director
What are the things that your company struggled with before opting for a virtual office and were you able to overcome those barriers?
Onboarding new hires during the pandemic wasnât easy before opting for a virtual office. Our industry requires differently skilled artists to produce art assets that are cohesive to the art direction of the whole game, training and reviewing process are not as ad-hoc online, as we need to schedule a meeting, wait for everyone to join it, and keep the meeting concise to not waste time. Sometimes we would find that some small issue cropped up after a meeting but itâs not a big enough issue to warrant another call, and oftentimes that issue (because it was ignored) will snowball into a bigger issue because it wasnât addressed immediately. A virtual office solves part of that issue by allowing casual check-ups on teammates, joining and leaving discussions that matter to you in a more natural way, and cutting down on the formalities of starting and ending a meeting. one caveat is that we still have to get used to NOT saying âgood byeâ after every discussion in oVice. :D
What made you choose oVice as a virtual office tool?
1) A virtual environment where creativity is bound to be born:
oViceâs simplicity is what caught our eyes. Even though there are many other similar services, some of them lean too much into the roleplaying aspect and actually hurts productivity rather than help it. I like that oVice manages to balance between being fun and accessible vs being practical.
One example is that users can click anywhere on the screen and âteleportâ to wherever they want instantly. This is not a simulation of real-life behavior, itâs an improvement! (I wish I can do that in a physical office and save tons of time! )
2) Fair and Reasonable Pricing Model:
The other reason is its fair and reasonable pricing model, which allows users to cancel anytime and pay for the space rather than per user. This helps our 100+ team members to be able to stay flexible and use it as a social tool in conjunction with our existing GSuite and Slack, rather than having to mandate everyone to log into oVice because we have invested a subscription cost on top of every employee.
I read that one of your important company values is âPassionâ, do you think that thereâs a connection between the passion for the work you do and the fact that you do it at a virtual office?
Yes Definitely :).
Our studio focuses on the people and their culture, we believe that with a good team synergy and a healthy environment our employees can focus on whatâs important to them â being creative. Sadly, due to the pandemic, we couldnât work in our studio which to many of us felt like a second home, and for a while, we lost the warmth and casual brainstorm of ideas that our studio facilitates, and that was tough. Luckily we found oVice, as it provides that sense of presence and belonging that many havenât felt since the beginning of the pandemic.
Other than a virtual office, what do you picture yourself doing at oVice?
Hosting parties and events! We had done a few end-of-project celebrations in oVice, virtual game events, and also birthday celebrations for our teammates.
About oVice
A 2-D virtual space where you can talk just like in person!
If you want to experience oVice, you can have a demo experience.
If you would like to have your own virtual space, please apply for a free trial and use it freely for 30 days.
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