Every day brings more troubling news of COVID-19. What at first seemed like a distant problem has quickly turned into a global event affecting nearly every aspect of business and personal life. As many adjust to a new routine of social distancing, many executives and decision makers are left wondering what they can do to ensure productivity while simultaneously keeping employees in good spirits.
Virtual Reality (VR), a relatively new tool that has experienced enormous breakthroughs over the last several years. While VR has yet to catch on commercially, it has found success in multiple business verticals. COVID-19 has given businesses a new perspective on VR and its capabilities, which is in turn helping businesses to shift into the digital economy and allow employees to work from home more efficiently.
Programs like Skype and Webex can be used to help boost online workflow, but VR offers a higher level of immersion and engagement when it comes to remote collaboration. A VR meeting platform like Glue, for instance, offers several features that are not possible in traditional 2D online meetings.
To start with, all participants are transported to a virtual meeting room. In this realized space, each attendee can see one another in an avatar form. In addition, all audio are carefully tuned, further deepening the illusion that everybody is really in one spot.
COVID-19 will likely impact everyday life through 2020 and possibly into the first half of 2021, or perhaps even beyond. Organizations cannot and should not expect short-term solutions to preserve productivity during this time. With the advent of such a treacherous pandemic, industries have arguably been forced into the next great transformation. Being proactive by leveraging new technologies like VR will allow companies to maintain a greater sense of normalcy, while optimizing workspaces for the true digital age of the 21st century.
