Now that we’re working virtually, how will the metaverse impact us?

The workplace of today is already very different from what we could have envisioned just a few years ago. In a world of virtual work, the metaverse promises to deliver new degrees of social connectedness, mobility, and collaboration. 

The metaverse has the potential to reshape the workplace in at least four ways:  

1. New immersive forms of team collaboration 
2. The emergence of new digital, AI-enabled colleagues who are highly futuristic and human-like bots  
3. The acceleration of learning and skill acquisition through virtualization and gamified technologies 
4. The eventual rise of a metaverse economy with entirely new enterprises and work roles 

Incorporating elements of adventure, spontaneity, and surprise into the office and work environment, the metaverse opens up new opportunities for rethinking the office and work environment. It can reshape the way we work, live, and even play! 

Thanks to the metaverse, employees (and bosses alike!) can say bye-bye to drab, boring, and old-school office environments – why, we can even work from the beach, the ocean, or anywhere in the world! Who wouldn’t want that?  

Although still in its early stages, the imminent metaverse offers businesses an opportunity to recapture the essence of “fun” work coupled with productivity (now that we’ll be partnering up with AI-human-like bots as co-workers), all in the settings of hybrid work.  

Employees can look forward to the comfort of working at home, with the excitement of logging in to virtual offices in real-time where no geographical boundaries exist.

Read more: How to metaverse in 5 minutes or less 

First, how do we get to the metaverse, and what would it feel like? 

Strictly speaking, there’s no one way to enter it. Derived from the concept first coined by Neal Stephenson in his novel Snow Crash (1992), the metaverse exists as a parallel three-dimensional environment that simultaneously goes through phases of a life cycle, just like how we live our lives in the real world.  

Owning land in the metaverse is a definite way to enter it.  

Through online world builders like Gather, Teamflow, and Virbela, we can eat, sleep, play, work and even conduct business deals without actually being present in our physical state. All we need is the avatars (our representative in the metaverse), plus the metaverse world itself.  

For online work, however, you can always take a seat in the virtual offices – fit and ready for you and your co-workers to conduct everyday professional transactions, minus the work commute and agonizing traffic.  

It sounds cool, doesn’t it?  

Here’s how the folks at Brazillian healthcare startup, Pipo Saúde envisioned it to look like within Gather, an online world builder.  

You might be wondering, “Why would we go to the metaverse just to sit down at virtual offices and log on just like we would at our real workplaces?”

The team at Pipo Saúde initially thought that too.  

Vehement at first, the team underwent entire workweeks in Gather, at the virtual offices. Trello co-founder and metaverse enthusiast, Michael Pryor remarks that when thinking about these tools in the metaverse as individual components, it tends to sound silly.  

However, the changes were significant when you bring people together with you to the metaverse.  

What are some of the biggest challenges when working in the metaverse? 

1. Ongoing privacy issues 
2. Lack of accessibility to implement a company-wide metaverse transition due to expensive tools 
3. Employee burnout could be transferred over to the metaverse, if not tackled from the root 
4. Humanizing the metaverse can be a tricky feat – the more it’s real, the more likely your people will want to be there  

On the flip side, opening up new avenues to create fun, quirky ways to excite work again would be the biggest opportunity metaverse can bring businesses.  

Don’t just take our word for it, let us help bring your digital desires to life! Tell us what you need and we’ll help you reach your digital goals faster and effectively.