During the course of the pandemic, much of our work shifted from physical spaces to video meeting software. While work-from-home policies alleviated the dangers of COVID transmission (for some), what many managers didn’t foresee was that productivity improved for 77 percent of employees, with staffers adding an equivalent of one extra day’s work to each week. Business owners with sky-high office rents were particularly pleased by this unexpected outcome, since they were paying their rent either way. We also know that a sizable amount of this productivity increase came from employees turning what was their physical commuting time into productive work time at home. With a large portion of the population now vaccinated and COVID protocols in place, companies are carefully weighing the next steps: return to the physical workplace, create a hybrid work model or stay completely virtual. With current productivity rates where they are, smart managers aren’t keen on rushing to reestablish a physical workplace. Therefore, the need for compelling, persistent virtual space is just as important now as it was during the height of the pandemic. And it will be for the future. Herein lies the current issue many employers are facing: the collection of tools that helped us “make do” during the pandemic do not equate to a virtual office. While a great many streaming options have emerged, they just allow connectivity – not an authentic connection. After all, a productive, healthy work culture built on trust, availability, connectedness, wellbeing and transparency cannot be created or maintained in a Zoom window. We have learned this lesson the hard way during the last two-plus years. The virtual work environments that succeed must be a simulacrum to physical office life. We must create the same quality and diversity of experiences that employees once had in physical workplaces purposebuilt to support the many types of interactions that occur during the course of a normal workday. Video software must support all these daily moments – from a brainstorming session to an intense client call to a co-worker’s celebration – and the best way to do this is through what we call persistent, virtual spaces. Pros and Cons of VR While VR in architecture has been around for some time, the past twoplus years have seen an explosion in mainstream adoption. Architects and designers are implementing digital twins, or virtual replicas of physical objects and spaces, to build and test everything from golf courses to office towers, and some By Adam Riggs Virtual Workspaces Must Transcend Zoom and VR Headsets 45 REMOTE WORK SOLUTIONS rwsmagazine.com PREMISES
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