After a few years of promising flexibility and "work from anywhere" cultures, big companies are now pivoting back to their pre-2020 norm. Employees are being offered carrots (and in some cases, threatened with sticks) if they don't start commuting and sitting in cube farms yet again, and employers have simply chosen to ignore the outcry and force everyone back.
The unstated reason is that commercial real estate leases are both long and expensive, and rather than investing in converting those properties into housing (fun fact: NYC just hit 100k unhoused folks last week) companies would rather just maintain the status quo. The stated reasons, however, generally have to do with collaboration and serendipity -- running into someone in the cafeteria or being able to swing by your colleague's desk for a quick chat can enhance productivity, learning, and connection.
And that's fair. While Slack and other messaging services have filled in a bit, there is something to be said for swinging by someone's office for a quick chat -- and the formality of requesting a time on Zoom destroys that. But with the announcement of the Quest 3 and Vision Pro, there is another path forward -- the metaverse office.
If we're all working in a shared space in the metaverse, we can be anywhere in the world and together in the same office at the same time. We'll operate with a traffic light model -- if my avatar has a red light above my head, it means I'm in a meeting or on deadline and not to be disturbed. A yellow light means that I'm focused but can chat if it's urgent; green means I'm grabbing a virtual coffee and free for a gab. Our avatars can chat and collaborate and then head back to our desks.
And these virtual offices won't have any of the downsides of the IRL open plan spaces we have now. A very smart friend of mine, who has been diagnosed with ADHD, can't work in open plan offices and finds herself shut out from many roles where she would add value. She could simply block the noise and set aside "available" times, rather than dealing with constant disruption. And there would be no more sitting in traffic, cramming onto trains, or missing the opportunity to run errands mid-day.
The metaverse will transform the way we work and socialize in the next five to ten years. If you're interested in learning more, drop me a line.