Metaverse: A Radically New Take on the Workplace

Abstract

The recent rebrand of Facebook as Meta received worldwide coverage. But the bigger question is whether this event will be just another rebrand or are the major technology companies increasingly recognising the emergence of a new concept called the Metaverse. Another area which needs to be looked into is whether the Metaverse is just a new term or has it been in existence always and is merely something which has bounced on to the center stage of the discussions surrounding the direction the workplaces of the future are taking and by extension, the resultant workplace environment. But, before any headway is made into understanding what effects this new concept is going to have on the workplaces, first the metaverse itself needs to be better understood. It will also be interesting to see what role the existing infrastructure plays in the fruition of this concept. Will the existing infrastructure be a foundation upon which the Metaverse will stand or will an alternate course be so that the existing infrastructure will have to be reoriented into its new role as something assisting the Metaverse. The next area which needs to be looked into is the element of continuity. Since this new concept is radical, therefore there will exist a probability where there may come to exist a disjoint between the metaverse and how prepared the HR of today are to embrace it. This paper intends to contribute towards a structured understanding of the metaverse and its effects on the workplace environment.