We have spent a long time working from home and I feel that remote workers are going through different stages of remote work.
First there was friction. The users wanted the same user experience. IT managers were struggling with scaling their remote working infrastructure. Then it became the new normal, where many organizations, including Facebook, pondered over making remote work permanent.
We discussed the potential benefits of this which included many cost savings. We shared some details of our own remote work setups powered by Citrix and how we have helped many customers reduce their costs with remote work.
At the same time, the world felt that there was frustration in the new technology and people began missing their day to day work. This might be due to the missing “human” element in Work from home. As humans are social animals most of us are missing the “Office” experience where we could interact closely with people, and Zoom CEO himself spoke of “Zoom Fatigue” at the height of all this.
I saw a new approach taken by Facebook to infuse life into remote work, and this sounds like a very fascinating concept to me. Facebook calls this new concept “Horizon Workrooms” and with this new product, people would be entering an office collaboration workspace through a VR set with his or her own “avatar”.
The introductory video below is quite promising.
To me, this concept is a technology epiphany which would give way for multiple streams of innovation. Imagine meeting your doctor online using a VR headset and you would have a virtual hospital-like experience. Similar experience would provide a wonderful experience for shopping where the users would be able to “Step in “ to a virtual store with a shopping avatar. They might be able to try to experience different goods by observing them in the virtual world and trying out new outfits etc.
This is an excellent way we can use technology to increase engagement and efficiency in the workplace.
Why I called this a technology epiphany is because it is a really powerful interplay of multiple technologies such as animation, virtual reality, augmented reality and collaboration. Most of these technologies were only used mostly for gaming and now they will become a part of the enterprise. This would create a boom in AR/VR technologies and people would be able to implement Virtual offices for better employee engagement, optimize recruitment and improve the sales process.
It seems that with the growing vaccination business leaders are taking different approaches towards work from home. Some have decided to allow vaccinated employees to return to office while some allow people to maintain a hybrid mode. However, with the growing new Covid variations, remote work will continue to stay. What do you think ?
Add a Comment