How does Virtual Office Affect Remote Work and Corporate Culture?

When you think of a virtual office, what comes to mind? A fashionable and stylish metaverse with AI as a secretary, virtual coffee and PDF magazines? A vision of a future where the lines between the physical and the digital are blurred, and yet, the reality is simpler: Zoom, Google Docs and Gmail. While these tools do offer a significant amount of convenience, they lack the personal touch that makes work feel like home.

But the spatial brain can't be fooled, or can it?

What if there is a place that can bring the best of both worlds together and make the remote work experience more immersive and engaging?

Let's discuss this question in detail👇

Zoom Era

At the beginning of 2020, the world was struck by the emergence of COVID-19. It was a period of significant disruption, as millions of people around the globe had to adjust to a new way of life, with remote working becoming the norm. Tech companies faced an unprecedented challenge.

They had to move all their operations online without losing efficiency while keeping in touch with staff and clients.

Adapting existing offline back office and front office operations to a remote setup was necessary. Let's explore the definitions of these two terms and uncover what lies beneath them.

Back Office vs Front Office

Many companies have "virtualized" their back office, which handles the technical side of the business and is usually unseen. This includes tasks such as analytics, accounting, compliance, and payroll. Traditional tools such as Gmail, Google Docs, and Slack have become the standard for collaboration, providing an efficient alternative to offline offices.

This enables staff to work remotely and have virtual "cubicles" in Zoom or Google Meet, where they can discuss projects with each other. Unfortunately, this is not the case for front office members.

The front office is the customer-facing side of a business. It's where your brand can show off and flex to make a good first impression.

It's hard to deny that it's become difficult to surprise a client with an online meeting in Zoom, as everyone has such calls on a regular basis.

One potential solution to this problem is to find new and innovative ways to connect with clients remotely.

One way to do this is to create a memorable experience for them from the moment they walk in the door until they leave. But where?

Virtual Office

"But there is already a virtual office," you will say, and you will be right.

It's about replicating the office in a virtual online space where employees can gather to meet and work together. Taking your team from a world of 2D video calls into an immersive virtual space delivers an experience like no other.

However, virtual office technologies are still not sufficiently developed.

Even at its best quality, the Decentraland metaverse shows a rather poor and flawed picture, not capable of capturing the attention of virtual reality fans.

It is unimaginable for serious bankers and lawyers to gather in a cartoon "conference room" with frog avatars to discuss multi-million dollar deals. Nonverbal communication conveys too much meaning to be replaced. A virtual office is a good option between meetings on Zoom that don't feel personal and expensive office buildings. Here's why.

The future belongs to offices in metaverses

The traditional office is no more. It was a casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic, and, like many of its fellow victims, it had underlying health issues.

Companies must identify the benefits of a traditional office, such as spontaneous interaction that can lead to creativity and productivity. At the exact moment, cut the drawbacks, like expenses, commutes, and annoying colleagues and bosses.

Glassdoor's survey showed that 50% of hiring decisions were based on company culture, so it's essential to make sure your culture is strong.

The Metaverse is an excellent way to create a strong company culture that reflects your values and attracts and retains top talent. This is especially true as we enter a new era of working, where remote and hybrid models are replacing traditional on-site work.

How can you build a strong identity and culture when working remotely? Invest in creating an immersive 3D virtual workspace to enable your employees to interact, engage, and collaborate more effectively than with traditional video calls.

An immersive experience for remote teams

One of the best ways company culture is built and maintained is by allowing teams to spend time together in formal and informal settings. Spending time with each other, whether on a big project or in the breakroom over coffee, is important for creating a good company atmosphere.

Remote working or only in the office on certain days can make it difficult to maintain company culture. Studies such as this one have found that remote workers often feel lonely, which can hurt their mental health.

Bringing teams together in the Metaverse is a great way to ensure everyone is connecting, even if only virtually. It opens up a whole new range of opportunities for employees to interact as they would in an office.

Creating a Strong Company Culture Through the Metaverse

Executives often think that providing a good product and paying employees well is enough to create a strong company culture. However, it takes more than that to build a positive environment and foster collaboration.

The Metaverse gives us a great way to make our corporate culture even better while we are working from home.

Something, of course, will be missing. For example, an office kitchen and a water cooler, since you won't be drinking coffee and snacking in the virtual world. But the gaming rooms, meeting places, and corridors - all them will create opportunities for spontaneous interaction with colleagues.

Socializing and teambuilding

Zoom icebreakers are good, but imagine taking teambuilding exercises to the next level - in a 3D space. Teambuilding is essential for creating a strong company culture.

According to a survey, only 15% of employees engage with their organizations.

The Metaverse enables you to host teambuilding activities in an immersive virtual environment, resulting in more effective collaboration. However, remote work has made this more challenging.

Almost anything you can do in the real world can also be done in the Metaverse. Remote teams can host town hall meetings in stunning virtual conference rooms or hold synchronization meetings to ensure everyone is on the same page before starting a new project. They can organize movie nights or join a quiz show that brings everyone together for a fun evening of team-building and learning.

Because the office is virtual and located in a metaverse, employees don't have to live in a specific location. Accountants can be from India, programmers from Ukraine and the head of HR can be based in Paris. The only obstacles to creating a global company are language skills and time zone differences.

Metaverse is the future of the workplace. The traditional office is no longer the norm, but the office still has a place in the modern world.

As we adapt to the future of work, companies must remain aware of what makes them unique and the type of business they want to be. This can be challenging when communicating from behind a screen.

I’m excited to present our new product - Townhall Space, for corporate metaverse events. Bring your team together and foster collaboration, no matter where they are located.

Visit our website to book a tour of our virtual office and learn how it can help create a healthy and successful company culture.