According to new research, Gen Z is the most enthusiastic about a virtual reality workplace, with 90% believing it would be beneficial where they currently work.
The U.S. Census Bureau revealed that between 2019 and 2021, the number of people primarily working from home tripled from 5.7% (roughly 9 million people) to 17.9% which caused an acceleration in advancements to help people efficiently work from home.
Before the pandemic hit the phrases ‘Zoom’, ‘Teams’, and ‘Meets’ were not commonly known or used – fast forward to 2023 and most people are unlikely to go through a working day without mentioning one of them. Virtual reality (VR) workplaces, however, are still yet to be fully embraced.
Whilst VR can be good for collaboration, employee training programs, recruitment processes, employee retention, and smoothing out onboarding processes for new team members, TechRepublic recently found that only 26% of businesses are using VR/AR to train employees.
To see if the workplace is really ready to go virtual TRG Datacenters conducted consumer research of 2,000 US employees aged from 18 to over 65, in locations all over the country.
Over three-quarters, (76%) of professionals surveyed believed a VR workplace would be beneficial in their current job.
The youngest demographic (18-24) was the most positive about VR workplaces. In this demographic, 90% stated that they could already see the benefits of virtual reality workplaces, without even trying them out for themselves.
Those in the northeast of the US were also more receptive, with 80% agreeing that VR workplaces would be beneficial. In the Southwest, respondents were less unanimous but still positive, with 61% stating that they could see how VR workplaces might be advantageous.
VR workplaces are a relatively new concept, however, almost half (49%) were well aware of it and knew exactly what the term meant. Of those who were less clear on the definition, almost a third (30%) knew what it was but did not know how it would work. Just 20% of respondents had no idea what it was.
There was a marked difference in awareness of the term across age groups. The youngest demographic (18-24) was most aware of the concept. In this group, 71% knew exactly what it meant and understood how it could work, and 26% knew what it was but not how it might work.
Over half (56%) of professionals stated that they would trust a virtual reality workplace when discussing confidential or private information at work. However, this figure slipped down to 44% amongst those aged 55-64. In this group, fewer professionals would be happy to discuss sensitive information via VR, instead opting for more traditional secure channels.
Comparing sentiment amongst older demographics to the youngest there is a much higher level of trust in younger professionals. Employees in Generation Z were much more open to the idea of using VR to discuss confidential information, with 82% of respondents in this age group stating that they would confidently do so.
Impacted health – such as eye strain and headaches from wearing a VR headset – was the biggest concern around the introduction of VR in the workplace (40%), followed by technical problems e.g. internet connection (37%), security issues (33%), increased working hours/screen time (30%), increased digital fatigue (29%), increased isolation of remote work (28%), confusing set up (23%) and gamification of work (23%).
Chris Hinkle, President of TRG Datacenters said: “It is interesting to see how overwhelmingly positive the US workforce is about the prospect of a virtual reality workplace.
“It is clear that the pandemic has accelerated the appetite for this sort of technology and different forms of remote working but collaboration is something that people clearly still crave, and VR can bridge this gap between remote and in-person working more effectively than programs like Zoom and Microsoft Teams.
“However, one of the key concerns in the delivery of virtual reality workplaces is the sheer volume of data that will be required to run them. Such technology will necessitate enormous data centers, with mind-boggling capabilities – the likes of which we’ve never seen before. So, is it possible? And if it is, when might virtual reality workplaces become the norm?”
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