The New World of VR Face to Face Meetings and VR Events/Conferences

With Covid the world stopped and then changed completely, some aspects of work changed permanently and none more so than the advent of hybrid working and fully remote working.

This presented its own set of challenges, lack of social contact for those that need it, less collaborative working and silo culture becoming even more embedded.

Virtual conferencing platforms like Zoom and Teams addressed some of this but employees often describe the sensation now of being “Zoomed” out.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Here at VRE we have been helping companies around the world take advantage of VR face to face meetings with our VR hire and VR meeting services. Why do we describe it this way? Well VR allows all the advantages of face to face contact but combined with all the advantages of remote technology, no need to travel, less disruption to work, yet still feel like “I physically spent the afternoon with my colleagues”.

That is because, in a sense they have.

 

Meeting in VR

A primary use of VR is for meetings, this can be team updates, planning, in fact any kind of collaborative work, our clients are always surprised by their first VR meeting experience, they find they can shake hands and even high five their colleagues in a completely natural way.

Meeting in virtual reality quickly becomes second nature, delegates are able to use their hands as they would in the real world to grab objects and draw on whiteboards as you would in the real world.

Working with Pfizer we linked delegates across the US and EU for management/leadership training and team building, with VR hire hubs across US and EU (and other locations) it makes VR virtual meetings practical and actually preferable to long distance travel or traditional video conferencing alternatives.

 

Feeling Like You Are Actually There

The key difference is delegates feel like there are actually there in that space, so much so we often have to let teams catch up before we start our training or session, they treat it like bumping into a colleague in a bar and want to engage as they would in the real world.

This is worlds away from video conferencing, where users may have their emails open, be checking their phones or even working while they have some divided attention on what is being discussed on the video call. Senior figures in major organisations have described this to us as very “suboptimal” learning or collaborating.

 

People Are More Likely to Be Themselves

Running VR meetings for companies like HSBC, Lloyds Bank, Mc Kinsey, GE across the US and EU and Asia, we have found delegates become disinhibited and much more relaxed in a VR environment.

This has a number of benefits over video conferencing, less extroverted team members feel more comfortable speaking up and sharing thoughts and ideas, people generally feel more relaxed and less observed behind an avatar.

As psychologists this is great when we are working with teams to support their development, we really get to see their behavioural preferences quickly and how they like to work with others.

 

What About Bigger VR Events or VR Conferences?

VR can also be used for virtual reality conferencing, for this reason we have VR hire hubs across the globe as sometimes VR events need to be a little bit bigger.

Working with some of the largest blue chip brands in the world we have run VR conferences bringing teams together across numerous countries and continents, all in a single space, without a single air mile travelled.

Aside from the environmental benefits it means that a VR conference can be run more frequently, more easily and involve more people.

We have designed stages/environments for keynotes, company celebrations, branded them, run Q&A sessions for employees to quiz senior leaders in a town hall style forum and all in a truly engaging space that allows far more than the real world would.

 

Once you Have Your Headsets We Can Offer a Whole Lot More

Whether us use our VR hire services or more commonly now purchase your own headsets, once you have them there are a variety of complimentary services you can use with them.

Large organisations that use our services often use the headsets for complimentary applications while they have them, before or after your VR event or VR conference you can:

  • Run VR team building to create some fun and engagement before the VR conference day
  • Run management/leadership training in smaller groups of 8-10 at a time
  • Assess teams using our innovative team and leadership development platform TALD-S, find out if they are a real team or a pseudo team
  • Run some of our high impact short 90 mins training sessions on key business related soft skills

Whatever you need in VR we can help, we often provide demo headsets and demo sessions as seeing is definitely believing when it comes to VR, so feel free to reach out and we would love to tell you more about our work.