What Is “The Metaverse” And How Might It Impact Your Job And The World of Work? (Part 2)

20 min readApr 23, 2022

In Part 1 of this article I shared I shared some essential terms and concepts about the Metaverse, the incipient but much-trumpeted virtual reality world that could impact many aspects of our daily lives, including our jobs, our workplaces, and the ways we interact with others in those workplaces.

However, the concept of the Metaverse is still being formulated and means different things to different people, just as did the internet when it was invented 32 years ago. Even so-called experts disagree about what makes up the Metaverse. While Mark Zuckerberg and his Meta company are mostly pushing the idea of a massive digital space where people can work, play or buy digital things, other experts see it as including elements like cryptocurrency, non-fungible tokens (NFTs), the next iteration of the internet (“Web3”) and decentralized finance (DeFi). Yet, most people on the planet — even smart and informed people — have no idea what any of that stuff even is.

And how big and how ubiquitous it will be depends on your definition. In a just-published 184-page report from Citi about the Metaverse ( Metaverse and Money — Decrypting the Future), one expert predicts that the number of Metaverse users could be anywhere between one billion (VR headset users) to around five billion (5G/broadband users) by 2030. That is a 5X difference in estimates depending on how one defines the Metaverse. Expect the phrase “it depends” to be used extensively when discussing the Metaverse.

Then, is it the next great wave of technology or is it mostly a sci-fi pipedream or hucksterism? Will you soon be attending meetings and performing your work as your digital twin instead of your physical self?

Well, it depends. (See?) Yes, it depends greatly on what you do for a living — or aspire to do for a living — and whether that kind of work can be done better, faster, cheaper in the Multiverse. And there is a viewpoint (including mine) that the future of work will most likely be a mixture of using different technology modes as appropriate rather than a binary yes/no or all-in/all-out of the Metaverse. So, breathe easier — at least for the foreseeable future, almost none of us will be spending 8–10 hours/day immersed in a digital workplace doing the avatar thing.

In this article, then, we’ll explore how this Metaverse technology (virtual reality) might impact the following aspects of work and jobs:

Employee training
Interacting with colleagues, bosses, customers
Performing the actual work that needs to get done
Leading and managing others

But wait! Before we go there…

Before we explore how the Metaverse and its virtual reality might or might not have an impact on those five areas of the world of work, we need to first make an essential distinction between three types of technology: Technology-Assisted; Augmented Reality (AR); and Virtual Reality (VR). The distinction gets at the point made above about there likely being a mix of technologies that we’ll use in the workplace. Those three types of technology should be thought of as a continuum and it colors the entire conversation about the future of the Metaverse at work. My version of the continuum looks like the following, with VR being the mode most associated with the Metaverse.

Technology-Assisted — Augmented Reality(AR) — Virtual Reality(VR)

(Physical World)……(Mixed Physical/Digital World)……..(Digital World)

The Three Modes

Technology-Assisted — Regardless of the industry or occupation, almost all of us have some sort of technology assistance that enables us to work more effectively and to interact with other people or with objects. This is stuff all of us are familiar with and which we probably already use: Phones; computers; text messaging; emails; video conferencing; software.

Even if some of those technology assist tools are highly sophisticated and powerful, they simply enable us to work better in our “real” physical world. While there is computing power (electrons) and bits and bytes behind the technologies, it’s mostly behind the scenes. The colleague we see on a Zoom call reflects an actual person we are interacting with somewhere else in the world. Similarly, emails and texts are simply modern-day equivalents of pen and paper sent by someone else in the physical/real world.

Virtual Reality — If “Technology-Assisted” is one end of the continuum, Virtual Reality (VR) is on the other end. It completely replaces the user’s real-world environment with a simulated one, a parallel universe of sorts. It is a reality with digital real estate populated by avatars or digital twins and here in 2022 requires a full headset for a truly immersive experience. To return to the physical world from the virtual one requires disconnecting from that digital world by turning off or taking off the headset.

Augmented Reality (AR), on the other hand, is shown in the middle of the technology continuum as it alters or adds to one’s perception of the “real-world” setting. The person is still in the physical world but with computer-generated input or overlays. Unlike VR, AR can be accessed with a smartphone or with other wearables less obtrusive than a VR headset. Google Glass was an example of an early version of an AR enabler and several companies are currently trying to develop contact lenses with embedded technology to enable AR. The pictures of the chip-embedded lenses do look a bit creepy, though…

The value of augmented reality is the way in which elements of the digital world blend into a person’s perception of the real world. In AR the user is provided with additional computer-generated information within the data collected from real-life that enhances their perception of reality. Recall the worldwide craze when Pokémon Go was released in 2016 and users could see a digitalized Pokémon character on their cell phone which seemed to exist right in front of them.

While AR has seen more development and applications than VR, they are both very new technologies and we can expect dramatic advancements in both in the coming years.

METAVERSE APPLICATIONS FOR WORK — MY TAKE

In The Metaverse: Training and Development

Employee training is an ideal application in the world of work for the Metaverse, especially technical training. Simulations are already prevalent in training (think healthcare professionals and airplane pilots, for instance) and virtual reality in the Metaverse takes it a step further and at a lower cost. In fact, the Metaverse is the extreme — and logical — simulation of reality. A learner can interact with objects/subjects in a very precise way and can experiment with different situations and scenarios in a risk-free environment.

Metaverse-based training will also reduce the need to have a human expert demonstrating, observing, coaching, redirecting, etc. This depends, of course, on the robustness of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) software that provides for the interactions in this parallel world. Apprentice programs, equipment repair training, military training exercises — all of them can be executed better, faster, cheaper in the Metaverse.

New employee training or onboarding is another application that is already being exploited. Recall from Part 1 of this article I noted that Accenture is using virtual reality for facilitating the onboarding of its expected 118,000 new employees this year. It reduces or in some cases eliminates costly travel and scheduling nightmares.

Virtual reality has also found its way into behavioral training. Walmart (WMT) employees use VR headsets to prepare for unruly customers and the company has reported increases in several training metrics such as knowledge retention and trainee satisfaction. The company has also reported that some training modules take one-third less time than similarly focused classroom training. That has added up to millions of dollars of savings.

Thus, there seems to be tremendous opportunity for Metaverse-based training. However, there are issues that need to be addressed. Accenture provided 60,000 VR headsets for its new employees, but are most of them young and “digital natives” who are quite comfortable with new technology? What about middle-aged experienced hires who might not be so tech-savvy and accepting of a gaming-like reality?

In addition, the VR experience makes some people dizzy and disoriented. The technology is likely to improve but there are people who can’t watch a short 3D video without becoming nauseous. And there are gender differences with VR sickness. One research study found that women are more than three times more likely than men to frequently suffer from motion sickness with VR (22.6% of female respondents vs. 7.2% of men). Will that be another barrier to getting ahead for women in the workplace?

Plus, there are “capture gloves” and other wearables that will assist our navigating the Metaverse so it most closely replicates our real-world interactions. Will all trainees be OK with that? All of this assumes learners have no disabilities that would prevent them from participating at a high level.

It’s more likely that Augmented Reality (AR) will be a better fit than VR for many kinds of training and education, especially in fields like medicine and manufacturing. It allows the learner to augment the physical world with digital “assists” making the learning not only more flexible but AR has also been found to increase the levels of engagement for the learners.

However, even for fields or occupations where AR or VR is a good fit, there will still be a mix of modes that learners will use. Trainees will not likely be spending long hours over many days wearing headsets and navigating the digital world at the expense of the physical world. Yes, Accenture did purchase 60,000 Oculus headsets for employee onboarding but in the news releases, they seem to be intentional about saying the headsets are to “facilitate” global onboarding, not that it is the sole source of their onboarding experiences. One account in The Financial Review puts the figure at about one-quarter of their Accenture onboarding time as being virtual. But that’s still a lot.

My take is that there will always be a place for in-person training, especially for leadership training at higher levels and executive education programs. There will be courses in MBA programs that offer an overview of the technology as well as allowing for learners to experience different virtual platforms, devices, and interactions. Perhaps they will have to lead a virtual meeting as an assignment. The purpose would be to equip them to be technologically literate in that space and would help them make choices about options to adopt and invest in for the organizations they lead.

High tech AND high touch is still a winning combination for training.

Even as training is a logical application for this Metaverse future, there will also be training required for many jobs and tasks that just don’t need a high-tech approach, be it AR or VR. Administrative; retail; building and groundskeeping; carpenters; welders; car and bus drivers; laborers and material movers; assemblers. It’s a long list involving millions of workers and the cost/benefit of digitalizing much of their training just doesn’t make sense. Digitalization should not be a solution in search of a problem. It’s not an end in itself.

So, for the foreseeable future, there will still be a lot of traditional hands-on training occurring without the need for gee-whiz technology. It all depends on the knowledge or skill that needs to be acquired and how amenable the learning is for a technological application.

In The Metaverse: Interacting With Colleagues, Bosses, Customers

One thing we’ve learned in the last two years of pandemic-driven remote work is that while video technology like Zoom, Microsoft Teams or Webex provides for convenient audio-visual connection with others, we don’t care very much for it in a group setting. The data, as well as lots of anecdotes, suggest it’s OK for interactions involving up to 3–4 people but beyond that small number both its utility and its popularity tend to plummet.

A search for “I hate Zoom” articles on Google brings up 42 million hits (seriously) and includes such dandies as:

“I hate Zoom: Psychology of being looked at on Zoom”
“This is exactly why I hate Zoom”
“5 Reasons why Zoom calls are an introvert’s nightmare”
“New study gives actual reasons why you can’t stand Zoom”
“Six reasons we hate Zoom meetings and what to do about it”
“Here’s my plan: I don’t ever want to use Zoom again”

Had enough? Apparently, we have, although at first people found it a novel and interesting alternative to conference calls. I know I did and I also use Facetime regularly with family/friends. But there are many reasons why people over time don’t like video conferencing, so the question is this: Will meeting in a virtual room as cartoonish avatars make for a better or for a worse experience?

The Metaverse visionaries see a lot of upside for virtual world meetings. It’s 3-dimensional so we get away from the 2-D flat screen of videoconferencing. They state that we will be able to move around and interact like we do in the physical world and avoid the talk-over tendencies of videoconferencing. While people in meetings also occasionally talk over each other, it’s more pronounced in Zoom or similar platforms, so the Metaverse evangelists like to state that the virtual space provides for more realistic interactions with commonly accepted protocols for acceptable meeting behavior.

Of course, many meetings are unproductive, poorly led, lack a clear purpose, etc. regardless of the medium (in person; videoconference; virtual), so digitalizing the experience will not solve the root causes of attendee dissatisfaction and meeting ennui. John Cleese of Monty Python fame was featured in a hilarious training film called “Meetings, Bloody Meetings” in 1976 and the lessons of the film are as germane now as they were then.

Like with videoconferencing, an advantage of meeting virtually as digitalized avatars is that attendees can join from anywhere, including from home, as long as the meeting attendee has the necessary equipment for the platform. Organizations will need to supply their employees with that equipment.

For people working in the office/factory and needing to chat for a few minutes with a colleague also at the same location, it’s inconceivable that someone would don a headset and send a meeting invite to the colleague who would also need to put on his/her headset and then connect. Face-to-face meetings will not face obsolescence. People will sit around tables and transact device-free and there will still be a need for videoconferencing. Don’t sell all of your Zoom stock quite yet.

There will also be people calling customers or colleagues from the car (assuming there will not be 100% driverless vehicles) who will use the still quite convenient cell phone. So connecting with others will almost certainly have several medium options.

One other practical consideration. People who are wearing a VR headset and who are working from home cannot walk around a room to position themselves in a different space in the virtual meeting room without first establishing what Oculus (the Meta headset product) calls a “boundary zone” in the room that a user is in. Think of it as being like an electrical dog fence on a lawn. With a VR headset on, a user cannot see a wall or things on the floor or real-world furniture so it requires a predefined “playroom” area that must be configured to inform the headset so the headset can warn the user that they are about to injure themselves.

The “don’t trip over the box on the floor” issue becomes a nonissue if someone wants to sit stationary at a table for a meeting but if part of the VR user experience is being able to move freely in a digital room one will likely have some limitations on mobility. Especially if the home “office” is a cluttered spare bedroom.

Meta has recently launched a new product called Horizon Workrooms and here is a short (90 seconds) marketing video for it that shows avatars in digital meeting rooms and is worth a quick look to see how that company — at least for now — envisions working and meeting digitally using its Oculus headset. Note — This is NOT a product endorsement of any type and is included here simply to provide readers with a visual reference for some of concepts and terminology in this article.

There will also be a learning curve for how to use the VR technology to conduct meetings. Just because your avatar can do something — like doing backflips on the conference table — doesn’t mean your avatar should do it. It will be more intuitive for some rather than others but with any new technology comes the required skill to use it. Think about how clunky video conferencing was the first few (?) times it was used for a team meeting. “I can’t see anyone;” “Bob, you’re on mute!’ “How do I send a message to someone here?” “My wifi here at home keeps going down.” And so on.

Because of the novelty of the technology and the different skill levels of meeting members, for a while, the technology will likely be a distraction instead of an enabler. There will be a lot of “wow — did you see what I just did?” moments and probably a lot of laughs, nervous and otherwise as we get used to navigating our digital selves in a digital conference room. And we can safely predict that there will be YouTube videos (or the equivalent) of priceless moments and hilarious faux pas as employees attempt to begin showing up in the virtual world.

In The Metaverse — Performing the actual work that needs to get done

This is the facet of work with perhaps the largest amount of “it depends” playing out. As I suggested early in the pandemic in an article about the future of Work From Home (WFH) in July 2020, one way of categorizing work is whether it primarily involves moving carbon (physical, tangible objects, including paper) or moving electrons (computers, digital). And “carbon-based” jobs are much less likely to have heavy digital components (in a VR sense) to them, although they could have AR components.

For example, if someone’s job is in manufacturing or assembling something, they have to be physically present at a worksite to manipulate something which is part of a set of tasks to create a finished product. While a car can be designed in the virtual world it has to be built in the physical world. The building and repairing of the roads for that car also take place in the physical world, not the digital world, some sci-fi novels notwithstanding.

Many knowledge workers, on the other hand, work with more intangible things but it’s still not clear how much of that work can or should be done in the digital world. Some observers suggest that design and prototyping work seem to be good fits for the Metaverse, but other types of knowledge work like writing or debugging code are actually forms of production and it’s hard to see how performing them in the digital space would add value. Again, it’s probably AR that will provide the biggest lift for doing the work (image from The Atlantic).

As I suggested in my WFH article from 2020 (above), most jobs require a physical presence to produce a physical product. For a large number of U.S. employees what they do for a living requires them to be onsite in an office or in a hospital, a factory, a truck, a classroom or in the field. They don’t spend most of their days peering at digital screens.

Examples? Police and firefighters; Cashiers; Postal Service workers; Retail employees; Pharmacists; Building and grounds cleaning and maintenance occupations (of which there are over 4 million employed). The also 4 million+ Construction and trades workers.

Carpenters. Welders. Bus and truck drivers. Installers and maintenance workers. The 116,000 sewing machine operators (Bureau of Labor Statistics says there are that many…). Assemblers. Fabricators. The 6 million+ laborers and material movers. Most people in the military. Woodworkers. Electricians. Plumbers. Inspectors. Butchers, bakers, candlestick makers.

Can someone please make a compelling case for how any of those jobs could be performed as avatars in the digital world? I’ve yet to read a thought leadership piece that explains in detail how work like that could be done more effectively in the virtual instead of the physical world. It’s mostly vague speculation and generalizations about how VR will be a place to work and play, such as this statement from Meta’s (formerly Facebook) home page. “The Metaverse will be a place where we can work, play, and connect with others in immersive, online experiences.”

For Augmented Reality — yes, many applications for the work itself, I believe. But jobs where the work itself gets done virtually? At the risk of sounding like the office technology-threatened curmudgeon who in the 1970s railed against the demise of carbon paper ( “Those newfangled copy machines! We don’t need ‘em!” Humbug!), I’ve not seen any evidence to suggest that a large number of employees will be performing their daily work tasks in the Metaverse.

There is, however, an interesting read from an individual who says he spends 8–10 hours/day doing his job writing code immersed in VR via his headset even though the work itself does not require him to do so. He is a true believer early adopter even if the rather long article often veers into geek-speak. So VR immersion work is possible, but I think most people do not share his passion for the joys of approaching work that way.

In the Metaverse — Leading and managing others

Let’s assume the Metaverse does indeed become an important part of the workplace scene and that many employees and managers are meeting as avatars in the digital world. How does that change the way a manager manages? How will managers/leaders have conversations about expectation setting or 1–1 performance updates? How will coaching be conducted? Will those interactions happen avatar-to-avatar or will it be more-low tech, such as video conferencing or phone?

Perhaps if the manager and their direct are co-located they might even have an old-fashioned face-to-face in-person conversation. That’s not low tech, that’s no tech. And not a bad thing. It would seem kind of silly to “mask up” for a 45-minute 1–1 status update. Where’s the value-add in doing that?

Will managers be able to effectively demonstrate empathy as avatars if facial gestures are more nuanced when operating as an avatar and some of the emotional connection is lost? Will new forms of leadership training be needed to develop managerial skills in the virtual space? Managers will need to be highly adaptable and agile to be effective in both the “real” world and in the virtual world.

There will likely be managers who are excellent in-person leaders but who are not equally effective in the virtual world for various reasons. How do you manage and develop those managers? There might be a whole new consulting industry that will emerge for helping organizations and their leaders bridge the real-world/virtual-world gap.

At this early stage in the development of the Metaverse there are so many related questions about leading/managing others. Such as:

Will younger digital native leaders have a leg up promotion-wise on their counterparts who are not as comfortable or as skilled navigating in the digital space?
Will senior executives in the organization embrace the VR revolution and lead by example with their virtual visits to teams and locations? As philosopher Marshall McLuhan famously said back in 1964, “The medium is the message;”
During the pandemic, there were instances of resistance at both the leaders and individual contributor levels to wearing anti-covid masks. How will managers handle their directs who balk at “masking up” (headset) and going virtual? Will it become a condition of employment if the job requires some virtual interactions?
VR represents a huge change — a big leap into the unknown. There will be blind alleys and failed experiments as all this gets incrementally figured out. Most assuredly there will be no big bang. There will also be advances and victories and many lessons learned. Will traditional change management approaches work for this change or will whole new chapters need to be written for how to help employees and leaders alike accept and support the introduction of some degree of virtual reality in the workplace?

At this stage, it’s not clear yet if we are even asking the right questions about work and the workplace in a Metaverse future. We don’t know what we don’t know. I’ve simply posed a few questions and offered some observations after having a 46-year career in the work world in multiple industries and having seen inexorable advances in office technology.

The progress of office/work technology — looking back at my own experiences

When I joined the “corporate” work world in 1974 many people in the office still used carbon paper. There were no laptops, desktops, iPads, or cell phones. No voicemail, no texts, no pagers. Early generation fax machines were rare as were copy machines. No email, no search engines. “Google” in 1974 was only known as a mathematical expression spelled “googol” which was the number 1 followed by 100 zeroes. It was coined by a 9-year-old boy in 1938 and adopted with a slightly different spelling by the founders of the current company in 1998.

Data was/were captured on individual “IBM” punch cards and then transferred and held on large reels of tape which had to be mounted in the central computer center to be read and stored. For the few managers who would get daily reports, those reports would come on huge (24" across) green and white continuous feed output paper printed by the computer center on impact printers. Sometimes a carbon copy of those large-format reports was printed but the copies had to be hand-stripped apart for distribution. Laser or inkjet printers? Nope — not in 1974.

Word processing in 1974 was almost non-existent — clerical staff used typewriters for documents. Since neither laptops nor PowerPoint had yet been invented (Microsoft would not even be founded until 1975), training and other presentations were delivered via overhead projectors using acetates. Reel-to-reel projectors were also used for training, as video cassettes and their required VCRs were still in early developmental stages.

The technology sounds primitive, I know. But somehow we managed…

The point of that quick revisit to the office dinosaur days of the early 70s is that technology progresses quickly and relentlessly, primarily because it builds on itself. It is more exponential than it is arithmetic. No one knows exactly how the Metaverse thing will ultimately play out but it will play out. There is too much money, momentum, and human energy pushing it to dismiss it as pipedream stuff. People can be naysayers at their own risk and those who become Metaverse literate or even early adopters could do very well for themselves and for their careers. The carbon paper defenders of this era will fall behind.

Sure, in this article I’ve identified some reservations, constraints, and “what about’s?” regarding this coming Metaverse, but make no mistake, the train is coming. The schedule and the destinations are very unclear at this time, but the train is coming.

As the cartoon character Pogo once so profoundly declared: “We are faced with insurmountable opportunities.”

About the author: Mike Hoban is a business topics writer and leadership coach/ advisor. He is actively working at becoming a world-class grandpa to his five young granddaughters. In addition to his 35+ years experience as a leader, consultant, and business owner he has also published extensively in Fast Company and wrote many thought leadership pieces for DDI when he was there. He also wrote a business column for 12 years. His recent commentaries — including many about leading during the COVID pandemic — can be found on his LinkedIn page: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-hoban-b5756b6/ He can also be reached at mjhoban99@gmail.com.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.