Consider the HR function as a cake with equal slices. From recruiting, talent acquisition and onboarding, to talent management, development and well-being, you’ve perfected the recipe over the years with systems, processes and protocols to support your organization better. Various external forces have disrupted the status quo of the traditional workplace – some for the better, some for the worse. The silver lining has been the rapid advancement and acceptance of new technologies that enable organizations and their people to be more agile as digital transformation continues to challenge the norm.

The simultaneous emergence of these new norms and the evolution of the workplace metaverse have presented organizations with the opportunity to discover new ways to manage human capital. Immersive technologies such as virtual reality take advantage of computer-generated simulations and spaces in a virtual world and allow people to create, work, play, collaborate and learn in a new medium. It is disruptive and comes with opportunities to manage the workplace of the future.

Imagine yourself donning a VR headset from the comfort of your workplace or home office. Imagine employees easily teleporting from AI-powered simulation exercises in a conference room to interactive group projects and team-building exercises in an outdoor amphitheater. Imagine reinforcing your company’s culture and values ​​by taking new hires on an immersive virtual tour of corporate headquarters. Imagine capturing and analyzing candidate responses to real-world challenges taking place in a digital twin of your corporate campus, then presenting the data on a customizable dashboard that tracks VR analytics and key metrics such as engagement, verbal and non-verbal communication and cultural fit. . Step into the future of HR.

Virtual reality is the new ingredient that is revolutionizing the traditional recipe for HR management. Instead of thinking of this impending change as taking something out of the pie, think of the introduction of virtual reality as the secret enhancer that widens the pie and can dramatically improve the employee/employer dynamic. Let’s see how organizations can start leveraging virtual reality within the HR function and become “meta-ready”.

Combining human capital and metaverse

Virtual reality has many implications for how organizations approach and deploy human capital in the 21st century. Think back to the recent bumpy road of COVID-related disruptions, the Great Resignation, flexible options ranging from working from home to working from anywhere, hybrid workplaces and return-to-work strategies. All have had a significant impact on HR planning and operational functions, with an ever-changing landscape of organizational and employee expectations.

Employees and employers seem to expect different things from each other and this imbalance is set to increase in the years to come. Many managers still have an office-centric work design mentality and struggle to adapt to flexible workplaces, while their teams strive for a more human-centric work design, according to a recent Gartner report. The resulting gap and disillusion leads to employee burnout as well as a war for talent. The same Gartner report indicates that the annual voluntary turnover of US employees is expected to jump almost 20% in 2022. It’s no wonder that hiring and retaining talent has gotten rather expensive these days.

Virtual reality bridges this disconnect by creating phygital (physical + digital) environments and interactions that satisfy the expectations and desires of both parties. Employees only need a headset and a Wi-Fi connection to join their colleagues in a virtual conference room for brainstorming or in a virtual cafe for a casual conversation, visiting another office or a work site. making, or taking “meta-breaks” to bond with colleagues through team building activities or mindfulness exercises.

Editor’s note: This is the first of a two-part series on HR+VR. In the next article, discover three VR attributes that can improve the employee experience in today’s workplace.