By Katie Deighton
Stay-home orders and the shuttering of workplaces have given
corporate employees some respite from getting dragged into
time-wasting water-cooler conversations.
But some companies and their employees don't want to leave
everything about the office behind, it turns out, and are
replicating their offices in "SimCity"-like simulations online.
File-transfer service WeTransfer BV opened its virtual space on
May 1, almost seven weeks after closing its physical offices in New
York, Los Angeles and Amsterdam as part of the global effort to
slow the spread of the new coronavirus.
Graphics reminiscent of early "Tomb Raider" videogames depict a
version of the company's Dutch headquarters, adapted to include
pool tables, techno music and in-jokes such as a "memorial" library
named for the very- much-alive chief creative officer. Staff roam
around in the form of avatars such as robots and panda bears.
Gordon Willoughby, the chief executive of WeTransfer, said the
platform helps provide the social experience of office life in the
way that Zoom calls and Slack have replaced business meetings and
desk-side chats. That is particularly valuable for recent hires, he
said.
"Those of us who have been working at WeTransfer for a while are
able to live off the social capital we built up from all those
serendipitous meetings and chats before," Mr. Willoughby said. "For
new people, that's much harder. The 3-D office is a really good way
of maintaining that unplanned connectivity."
WeTransfer employees tend to use the virtual world for daily
stand-up meetings and happy hours; business planning is kept to
tools such as Google Hangouts. Julia Shapiro, senior director of
marketing in the company's Los Angeles office, said the simulated
office offers a welcome change of scenery from her kitchen table,
where she has been working during the lockdown.
"It adds a little excitement to what would just be eight hours
of video calls in a day," she said.
Facebook Inc., Twitter Inc., Coinbase Inc. and Shopify Inc.
recently said many of their employees will work remotely in the
future, even after the pandemic recedes. But some employers worry
about losing positive elements of a shared workplace, such as the
serendipity of in-person interactions.
A crop of technology companies stand ready to help.
Sine Wave Entertainment Ltd. last month introduced Breakroom, a
virtual-world product for remote workforces. It can accommodate
all-hands meetings, secure one-on-ones and document sharing.
Clients of the product include Virgin Group Ltd. and Torque Esports
Corp.
Many customers initially assume they will recreate their
offices, then realize they can make tweaks that would be impossible
in the real world, said Sine Wave CEO Rohan Freeman.
"We spend our lives wishing we were working in open, sunny
campuses with butterflies outside," Mr. Freeman said. "Here you can
realize that dream."
Although clients can use Breakroom to create their office
utopia, the platform also enables real-world elements such
additional privileges for senior staff. In Sine Wave's own virtual
world, senior members can lock the boardroom, which is located on
top of a hill overlooking the rest of the office.
Some virtual office spaces predate the pandemic.
Italian energy company Enel SpA has been working with Spatial
Systems Inc. over the past year to assemble workers as avatars in a
meeting room combining augmented reality and virtual reality.
Marina Lombardi, head of new technologies and innovation-network
technology and innovation at Enel, said the service has proven to
be particularly valuable during emergencies, "when the need for
colleagues to be connected in the fastest and most effective way
becomes vital."
"The tool is going to be even more important in the situation of
prolonged remote work generated by the Covid-19 pandemic," Ms.
Lombardi said.
Unlike real estate, there is no standard formula to calculate
the price of a virtual office. Enel wouldn't divulge how much it
spends on Spatial. Breakroom costs $500 a month for up to 50
employees. WeTransfer hired agencies Achtung mcgarrybowen and
Isobar to create a proprietary virtual office and doesn't have to
pay a monthly license to use the space.
Educators are exploring the concept as well.
The School of Communication Arts in London is on its second
simulation since it closed its physical doors on March 16. Marc
Lewis, the college's dean, has committed to spending GBP10,000 on
testing virtual office products to host lectures and keep connected
to students.
Students now use a platform called Walkabout to traverse their
own digital offices -- a perk they don't receive in the real world
-- as well as hangouts such as a bar and a smoking area. Avatars
don't drink or smoke there, but the décor is designed to encourage
more casual, spontaneous conversation. The hangout areas also act
as de facto meeting spaces if other rooms are occupied.
WeTransfer plans to keep the virtual office once its physical
equivalents reopen. Mr. Willoughby wants to see more remote working
even after the coronavirus pandemic abates, and said the platform
will help in that transition.
"But I'm not sure we're going to allow people to create their
perfect office," he said. "I don't want to raise expectations of
the physical space too much."
Write to Katie Deighton at katie.deighton@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 27, 2020 06:14 ET (10:14 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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