HR has had to make many adaptations over the years, particularly as a result of emerging technologies and our reliance on them following the COVID pandemic in 2020. However, all our adaptations to that technology are nothing compared to what is to come. When will the Metaverse take off will be the question, and not if.
It will fundamentally change HR from several different perspectives, and we will quickly analyse each of these. For more information on our thoughts, please do get in contact with director@integratedresources.co.uk
“A vision of what many in the computer industry believe is the next iteration of the internet: a single, shared, immersive, persistent, 3D virtual space where humans experience life in ways they could not in the physical world.”
The metaverse will change interviewing in a fundamental way. It will make it easier to run assessment days in a virtual format using 3D avatars from remote locations. This will help company costs and overheads, make tracking and recording easier in these settings and make it easier to allow clear markers for performance on assessment day, thereby decreasing labour turnover and the success of recruitment campaigns. So as to ensure these benefits, there needs to be a sufficient infrastructure in place and this will take time to build. Therefore, in the field of HR, we need to be early to the metaverse, not just on time.
With important meetings, especially considering increased hybrid working, the metaverse will enable more in-person-like round table collaborations which will make teamwork from remote locations more effective. This means employees can get a greater benefit from remote working that matches some benefits workers used to get in the workplace, but they are now able to do that at home. In addition, the metaverse will enable more fluidity in the round table discussions as people are not tied to a physical location; examples include brain-storming meetings where location is irrelevant. The structure of the metaverse will inevitably make this process easier and enable more to be done in real time, particularly in strategic long term planning meetings.
Of course, the recent advent in the metaverse means that there will need to be significant changes to workplace policy as well as the adaptation to subtleties that the metaverse presents to us as and when they become apparent. With the metaverse of 2023 having been forecast to grow five-fold since 2018, it is not a question of choosing when to adapt to the metaverse, but it is about adapting to the metaverse now. Those companies that do, will be able to make life better for both their employees as well as for the overall health of their business.
