Three Ways in Which Virtual Reality Could Impact our Future Jobs

In the last few years we have witnessed businesses at the forefront of technology, like Facebook, Samsung, Sony, and Google, launch their own virtual reality technology (both hardware and software). While the great explosion of virtual reality is yet to happen, several companies have started to carry out initial tests in the corporate field. These experiments are not taking place in view of clients, but within the companies, to improve production processes and business know-how.

It’s important to highlight that, like any change in technology, it’s not a case of making changes just for the sake of it, or focusing on what is all the rage just to be part of the in crowd, but it’s done with the clear objective of improving the performance of the business, cutting back on resources, and and improving its efficiency.

• Telematic conferences: In a business environment where face-to-face work is not absolutely necessary and where, in many cases, job interviews are already held in an online environment, virtual reality enables the “transporting” of workers who you can’t find in the office or are currently working at a required location and can communicate in a more direct and “personal” way than videoconference. Not only would we be able to see our colleagues’ faces in video, but also have them “truly” at our side. This is the closest thing that we currently have to teletransportation.
• Employee training: In the same way that virtual reality is being employed for education purposes for the younger generation, its impact on employee training could also be revolutionary. Virtual reality will make it possible, for example, to test new medical equipment or help users get over their fear of speaking in public, putting the user, from a safe and solitary environment, in front of 10,000 people using just their virtual reality glasses. There are practically endless possibilities.
• Changing our workplace to our taste. In a world where offices have become open plan, very different from the individual cubicles of only a few years ago, with the intention of encouraging interaction and collaboration between employees, the possibility of privacy when working has diminished. By using virtual reality, employees would be able to “relocate” to another work space, to work in complete privacy, or even use a space that the real world cannot offer such as an operating room, a building under construction, or a theatre. Without the need to carry out construction work, it will be possible to work wherever we want without moving an inch from our office. We could work from the middle of a forest or even the surface of Mars, however, at times all this privacy still isn’t enough to concentrate.