MetaMagic: Navigating the Cosmic Shift

Is the Metaverse going to be as cataclysmic as it seems? A game changer for the business world?

ChatGPT has aptly titled this research article as MetaMagic: Navigating the Cosmic Shift as the advent of Metaverse has been nothing short of magical while being incomprehensible for many.

This artificial intelligence-driven software that has been sprouting all over the corporate world indeed deserves our attention as it possesses the power to reinvent the HR domain and bring it to new heights. 

All those who know HR or have worked in HR in any capacity are aware that historically, HR has been considered a support function. For those who are unaware of all the ills that have plagued HR as a discipline over the years, I will elaborate on what I mean when I write that HR has been primarily a support function. 

While the business of a business is to make money, the primary objective of an organization is to address a market need or solve a problem effectively. The solution manifests in the form of a product or service which the organization develops and launches, hoping to make great sales over time. 

The functions that directly assist in the production, development and sales of the product or service are referred to as core functions, while the ones that don’t are support functions. Essentially, support functions do not make the business any money, at least not directly.

Consequently, as HR has not been one of the departments that directly help the firm in printing bills, it has been condemned to remain a support function since its origination. 

Considering the fact that management is rarely far-sighted enough to recognize the pertinence of these support functions in enabling the core functions to operate efficiently and effectively, support functions have never really received the attention and respect that they so deserve. 

As the current article aims to shine the spotlight on HR in particular (while there are other support functions that exist), we will now talk about how HR has evolved to become a strategic function instead of a support one over the decades, thanks to the emergence of technologies such as those driven by AI and analytics. 

While previously there was limited hope for HR to be the center of attention of the management, (it is still not possible), at least we have become a part of the queue now. We will prioritize the impact of analytics on HR in another article. Today, the focus is on the AI-driven, in-vogue Metaverse, which is being considered an entirely new way of interacting with the world. 

To begin with, however, what exactly is the Metaverse? A catalyst for change, no matter the domain under consideration, the Metaverse, made popular by Facebook which has rebranded itself as Meta, is the amalgamation of the virtual and physical world where users are able to interact with each other in a 3D virtual space in real-time. 

Contrary to popular belief, the concept of the Metaverse is not a new one. First introduced in 1992 by Neal Stephenson in his sci-fi novel Snow Crash, the term Metaverse has been used time and again to refer to a world that finds its bases on extended and virtual realities where non-player characters (NPCs) are able to engage with other users and the world in the form of avatars that they create and have complete (yeah, right) control over. 

As would be expected, the corporate world demonstrated much enthusiasm in adopting the Metaverse, underdeveloped as it currently is, and displaying curiosity regarding the implications that it could have for the business.

To simplify, people want to know how they can leverage the metaverse to make money for their business. Corporations across the world, big or small, want to get their hands on this new piece of fascinating technology to enhance their current processes. 

For the HR function, the incoming and speedy adoption of the Metaverse points to virtual recruitment, remote work, and immersive employee learning initiatives. While virtual and augmented realities have been a part of corporate strategy for a significant period already, the Metaverse is capable of enhancing their usage. 

Previously, the management had no way of identifying the effectiveness of utilizing VR in the work setting. Plus, all research utilized interviews and other qualitative methods to understand if the VR applications were effective or not. 

For instance, while research existed on how VR can be used to reduce employee stress by providing a calming and immersive environment for employees, allowing them to to disengage with work activities and relax, the only way to ensure that this was actually true was to ask the users directly. 

As numerous biases plagued the employees’ responses, the credibility and objectivity of the data collected through interviews were constantly under doubt and could not be accepted at face value.

Metaverse is expected to resolve this issue by integrating physiological and behavioral biometric data with the data generated through interviews to ensure a high degree of reliability and validity.

While utilizing the Metaverse for the benefit of the people might be the last concern of the management (as history has taught us), prospective use cases of the Metaverse to enhance the HR function have emerged in abundance.

From this point forth, we will discuss, at length, the various ways in which the Metaverse could potentially assist employees, making their lives easier and providing them with a richer workplace experience.

Virtual Recruitment

To begin, let us talk about how Metaverse can potentially be used for, *drumroll please*, recruitment or virtual recruitment to be specific. Considering that the Metaverse is largely based upon extended realities, integrating the Metaverse into the workplace for the benefit of the employees (which is, again, the last thing on anyone’s mind) is expected to be a costly affair.

Hence, whether or not the Metaverse can improve the efficiency of the workplace is the big question. However, certain scholars are also wondering if the Metaverse can be used to improve the candidate’s experience of the entire recruitment process. 

People who are at all involved in the corporate world know that your current skills and qualifications become redundant within the blink of an eye. As such, it is difficult to determine the qualities the workforce must possess. Such uncertainties have made recruitment all the more difficult.

Recruitment, if done incorrectly, can also cause the company to lose money and I doubt any company would want to take a financial hit in an era defined by cost-cutting measures. As per a study by ManPower in collaboration with HR Voice and Open Sourcing, a recruitment misstep can result in expenses ranging from €30,000 to €150,000 for a company.

While for roles that do not require the employee’s physical presence, remote hiring had already become the norm. However, with the Metaverse in the picture, now remote hiring can be executed for such functions that previously required in-person interviews and assessments. A few of these roles are those of a nurse, pilot, and security personnel.

As the Metaverse will potentially allow for recruitment to become fully online, the recruiters will have a considerably larger pool of candidates to select from. Moreover, the Metaverse can potentially render the personal touch that remote workers so often miss out on as our avatars can have those well-known coffee machine meetings in the virtual world of Metaverse.

The future of recruitment is expected to be all about the interaction of our avatars. The Metaverse has an additional benefit of helping propel diversity & inclusion initiatives as immersive environments such as the Metaverse encourage inclusiveness through the use of avatars.

Currently, a number of big-name firms such as Microsoft, Samsung, Siemens, Accenture, and PwC have already inculcated the Metaverse as part of the recruitment process.

Microsoft has come up with Mesh while Meta has devised the Horizon Workrooms to make space for HR in the Metaverse. The most essential element that has emerged from the research studies that investigated the virtual immersive recruiter is that while the software is definitely effective, it also incurs little cost for the firm. At the moment, data scientists and IT personnel are taking the lead in being recruited through the Metaverse, and other professions are soon expected to follow.

The Metaverse is also expected to significantly reduce the time it takes to fill a particular role as AI is set to take over the more repetitive parts of the recruitment process such as initial interviews and resume screening within the Metaverse. Hence, as AI performs initial screening rounds, the overall candidate experience improves as both the candidate and AI are interacting through their avatars and as AI becomes progressively better at emulating a human. 

The emergence of the Metaverse improves the overall concept of recruitment in another way, that is, through its appeal to the younger generation. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are hardly reading newspapers or considering the traditional methods of employing on-site interviews to make the hire. So, let’s face it, the more appealing a firm’s recruitment strategy is to the rising generations, the more likely it is to win the talent wars. 

While the implications of the Metaverse on recruitment can be discussed at length, for now, we will move on to talk about the potential impact of the Metaverse on Learning and Development. I will, in the future, write a detailed article on the impact of Metaverse on recruitment.

Beyond Learning 

The word Meta, in its core form, means beyond. Hence, any learning and development programs implemented in the immersive environment of the metaverse, by definition, will go beyond the traditional methods of training that are currently the norm. Although we have a long way to go, some research studies exist that examine virtual learning and development. 

Foremost, as the Metaverse is capable of rendering a highly-immersive environment where the user is able to forgo distinguishing between the real and the virtual world, the learner’s engagement levels are expected to rise. To put it more simply, when all your senses are tuned to the learning material in front of you, as would be the case in the Metaverse, it is expected that you will learn better and retain better.

Metaverse is also being designed to be more interactive and awe-inducing (imagine learning about the solar system while revolving around the sun) and flexible (you can put on the VR glasses and start learning as per your schedule). 

Moreover, learners would not be bereft of learning resources and opportunities due to their lack of availability in certain parts of the world, as physical location would no longer impact learning. It is like an ultra-advanced version of remote learning through platforms like Coursera and Udemy. Further, the Metaverse provides a learning environment that is customizable to fit the learner’s needs.

The AI that forms the Metaverse is capable of identifying the user’s needs and crafting a tailored learning path for them, including recommendations on what to learn next, utilizing specific sensory aids (not just visual aids) depending on the learning style of the user, and focusing specifically on the weak areas where the user is struggling. 

In areas such as medicine, aviation, architecture, and the military, VR-based simulations, the predecessors of the Metaverse, are already being widely utilized. While the integration of such AI systems capable of understanding patterns in learning behavior to make specialized recommendations to the learner is not very prevalent yet, we are well on our way to making such integration happen on a larger scale. 

One prominent reason that VR-based simulations, and soon the Metaverse, are the preferred method of learning and development in these particular domains is the safety they provide to the learner and the subject under study (it is hardly prudent to have an actual human under the scalpel for the training of a surgeon).

From an organizational perspective, the adoption of the Metaverse for employee training will unfold at a snail’s pace considering the preference of management to continue utilizing classroom training even in the face of studies reporting its multiple drawbacks. 

However, once we make it through, the learning opportunities that employees will be able to utilize once the Metaverse becomes more commonplace could be the singular determining factor enabling companies to win the talent wars.

Avatar Performance

With the emergence of the Metaverse as the playground where business deals are signed and operational processes take place, it is pretty obvious that the measures of performance that are currently under consideration would be entirely replaced by a new set of key performance indicators (KPIs).

So what is it that determines the success of our avatars in the virtual workplaces that would be made possible by the Metaverse?

While we are pretty used to the financial (% of total revenue that you helped generate) and other quantitative metrics of performance (number of leads converted, total sales made, etc.), certain other KPIs are expected to gain importance over these more traditional indicators.

These may include effective communication and relationship building in the virtual world, confidence in engaging with the virtual environment, and eye-tracking to determine levels of employee focus.

Other subjective measures of employee satisfaction like job security, stress levels, and perceptions of flexibility and autonomy (key pillars of new work) are further expected to impact the performance of avatars. Lastly, employee productivity may be measured by evaluating the number of tasks completed effectively and efficiently. 

A number of factors are expected to impact our performance in the Metaverse. Consider the fact that not everyone wishes to be engaged in the Metaverse to earn their living, and hence, such employees who are not fans of technology may suffer from techno-stress. Others who may like the prospect of constant engagement with the virtual world a little too much may develop a sort of techno-addiction. 

As we know, data privacy and other forms of online security have become major concerns of today’s tech-dependent world. Can you imagine how much more important cyber-safety and privacy concerns would become once we all shift over and gain a permanent office residence in the Metaverse?

All these issues would need to be taken care of by the HR department (of course) in collaboration with legal, administrative, and IT departments to ensure optimal performance levels. 

Meta-branding

As this post is exceeding the imaginary word limit by a great margin, I will now talk about the last sub-topic for this post and leave the rest for the second part. It is about employer branding, a topic that is much too close to my heart.

Considering the fact that only a singular worthy research paper is available on the topic, you can imagine how much further we need to go before any conclusions regarding the usage of the Metaverse for employer branding can be derived.

Getting to the point, however, the primary purpose of a business is to make money and to do that, the business needs top-notch employees who know how to read the market and make that near-impossible sale.

Employer branding is a strategy deployed by firms to win, what McKinsey has referred to as, the talent wars. There are numerous benefits that employer branding initiatives render. Firstly, they let prospective candidates know that the company is a great place to work. Secondly, it poses a reason for existing employees to remain with the company (by highlighting all the benefits they are enjoying by being employed there).

Now, this is not to say that the companies engaging in employer branding have a better work environment and offer more extravagant employee benefits than those who don’t. However, the candidates will not know that one company is a great place to work unless the company markets itself as such. 

Considering the fact that technology is quite literally everywhere, it only makes sense to make use of the latest tools available to further one’s employer branding goals. The Metaverse, one of these latest pieces of technology, is already intriguing as is, but the potential for it to be utilized for employer branding?

It is already catching corporate eyes globally. Companies like Roblox, Nike, Asian Paints, Nvidia, and Decentraland have already found a home in the Metaverse for their employer branding initiatives.

How exactly is the Metaverse expected to assist in employer branding, though?

We have some thoughts on that.

The future of employer branding includes hyper-personalized experiences for each prospective employee (an ambitious goal) based on their opinions, behaviors, and preferences. This would include highly customized messages and media exposure.

For example, an aspiring HR intern would possibly get to experience what a day in the life of an HR intern looks like; all in the immersive Metaverse. Another way would be to use Metaverse during the employee induction period to help them become acquainted with the way things work at the organization.

Moreover, even international networking events can be organized, all inside the Metaverse. Not to mention, virtual, but very real, office tours including those to the global head office, all exclusively available in the Metaverse. I doubt that it is a far-fetched statement that companies that are actively using the Metaverse for employer branding would be preferred over those that are not.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that the future of employer branding is quite virtual and quite luxurious. Hopefully, I will be here to cover it!

And that is it for this article on the potential impact of the Metaverse on the workplace. If you enjoyed the read and gained something out of it, subscribe!

What are your thoughts on how the whole Metaverse phenomenon will unfold? Are you excited for it to become mainstream? Let me know your thoughts in the comments!

Until next time,

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