PixelMax has released a thought leadership blueprint outlining their vision for the future of the virtual workplace metaverse.

The Manchester-based company specialise in building 3D worlds, digital real estate, and online corporate assets, creating immersive multi-platforms.

Entitled ‘The Virtual Workplace – Enter The Metaverse’, the new blueprint outlines the company’s vision for the virtual workplace, including how the office and work culture of the future will adapt to change.

 

Central to PixelMax’s vision is considering how businesses and economies are ‘future proofed’ to deal with the changing dynamics of workforces, consumer demand, and global events – such as future pandemics.

The blueprint goes further to outline the importance of how this shift will impact employee well-being, mental health, and work-life balance. This also affects wider issues of global warming and climate change because of individual and workplace carbon footprints, says PixelMax.

The PixelMax thought leadership piece was borne from analysing how 2020 impacted the office and workplace environment.

Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, around 85% of employees were in the office working every day/most days, with around 42% of the workforce conducting remote working once a week and around 32% never having remote-worked from home.

Post Covid, the preference for future working is quite revealing, with 32% wanting to work remotely every day and 52% wanting to work two to three days remotely.

Only 12% want to work remotely once a week, demonstrating that over 84% of the workforce want a hybrid model for the future.

The ‘virtual workplace metaverse’

These statistics led its three visionary founders, Shay O’Carroll, Andy Sands, and Rob Hilton, to think about how the virtual workplace could become a hybrid: the new enterprise metaverse.

The founders believe that the virtual workplace metaverse of the future will exist in a virtual and real-world parallel, a mixed and immersive reality.

There is a popular belief that virtual reality has to be viewed and experienced using VR Headsets or 3D glasses, but this is not the case, the company says.

The mixed immersive reality of the virtual workplace is entered through your computer, laptop, smartphone or smart device, making it accessible to the entire workforce.

PixelMax believe that the benefits of a hybrid workplace to the corporate workplace are immense, with increased productivity from employees, reduced absenteeism, and happier and more productive employees.

The virtual workplace metaverse will allow:

• Companies to create, design and own their virtual workplaces alongside their physical offices or workplace.
• A virtual workplace that is a true representation of company brands, values and cultures.
• An engaging hybrid experience for productivity, where employees co-create regardless of their location.
• A platform that encourages a positive company culture and work environment that brings together and energises remote and hybrid teams.
• Incorporation of third-party platforms such as Slack, YouTube and Dropbox.
• Access to dedicated employee well-being areas and activities.
• Some separation between home and work environments

Through its virtual workplace metaverse, PixelMax expects the average employee can save around £1,234 per annum on fuel costs and around £500 per annum on parking and congestion charges, as well as air pollution taxes.

The virtual workplace means the average person will also save on average around two hours per day commuting, which equates to around 10 hours per week in productivity.

PixelMax insist that they are not advocating to replace the ‘in-person’ real-world workplace, but to create the ‘perfect hybrid’ for the office or workplace of the future.

Image credit: PixelMax

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