Embracing the Metaverse Revolutionizing HR Operations – ibentos

Embracing the Metaverse Revolutionizing HR Operations

CHAPTER-1: The Context

It was the year 2020, the world was suffering from repeated strikes of the COVID-19 pandemic, industries were shutting and virtual working was just becoming a norm when all of a sudden Facebook made a global announcement of moving towards creating a highly experiential technology called “The Metaverse” and switching its brand name to “Meta”. This sent shockwaves across the industries globally as to “What is Metaverse?” “What makes it so important that a trillion-dollar company changed its brand identity suddenly?”
This announcement from Facebook was a clear giveaway that virtual working would stay and it need a more interactive medium to sustain itself. Metaverse promised more than just a gamified walkthrough or an animated 3D video platform. The learning was simple, the new-age world can be independent of working and creating experiences without the need of being physically present at a location. The virtual world could sustain parallel to the physical world but the question for millions still remained, “What is Metaverse?”

CHAPTER-2: The Metaverse Question

The Metaverse is essentially a virtual environment that allows users to connect, interact and collaborate with one another in the most seamless and immersive 3D environment. Metaverse is not just any virtual communication platform, it’s a life-like virtual version of your world, where you can observe, assert and interact with other participants and with the 3D props present in the environment to actualize your real-life experience. Now all this sounds interesting and inquisitive but the question still remains, “what problem does it offer to solve and for whom?”, “Which industries have the highest scope of benefit by adopting the metaverse?”

CHAPTER-3: The Relevant Industry

The metaverse, according to many experts, will be the next significant technological advance, changing how we work, play, and socialize. The Metaverse can provide immersive and compelling experiences for various uses, thanks to its realistic graphics, adaptable surroundings, and cutting-edge technologies. But, the best use case for Metaverse is where the experience can be directly provided to people, i.e. where people can interact without involving additional parties in between. Though the use of Metaverse can be wide one of the best use cases can be in the Human Resources segment. The processes involved in Human Resources require direct contact between individuals, which due to the COVID-19 pandemic was pushed towards a virtual format.
On one hand, this opened aspects for HR individuals to connect with prospects from all over the world but on the other hand has restricted the “human connect” and has dissolved the experience for the prospects. This is where the Metaverse fits in. The Metaverse promises a life-like experience and interactions in a virtual world which during onboarding and induction sessions for new hires, can provide engaging experiences and have the potential to ease out HR processes. This blog will explore the benefits that the metaverse has for HR systems around the world.

CHAPTER-4: The Need

  • The current and the upcoming generation of the workforce includes majorly millennials and the GenZ who are accustomed to technology in their daily lives and virtual working, shopping, entertainment and much more, from a young age. Hence metaverse-based hiring, induction, onboarding, training etc., would be a key attraction for them.
  • Since the pandemic, most companies have either switched to virtual or hybrid working formats, due to which the HR professionals have been facing a severe drift among the prospects and the hired individuals. Due to the virtual format HRs often face troubles in connecting with the team and forming a bond with them that helps them smoothen the day-to-day processes.
  • Moreover, since the hiring process has shifted virtual, HRs professionals witness a lack of connection with the candidates which restricts their capabilities to judge them and their skills for the job.
  • Employees or candidates of organizations that are spread across the globe often face a lack of bonding between their teams which are just connected via standard meeting platforms that do not allow them to engage on further levels, perform tasks together, play games or quizzes and learn together. This has been a significant reason for the loss of motivation and inspiration among employees to outperform.

CHAPTER-5: The Transformational Tool

With soaring attrition rates across industries and receding motivational levels among employees and candidates, HR professionals are the most heat and it is high time, conventional measures are pushed back to play the new bet, the Metaverse and the benefits it offers to improve in the entire employee life cycle of attraction, recruiting, onboarding, development, and retention.

An Aspirational Brand Building

Employees or Candidates no longer wish to work for a brand that has no attached aspirational value. Earlier, brands provided gyms, recreational spots, meditation pods and a lot more to engage the teams but virtual working has brought this engagement crisis on HR professionals now. Offering a metaverse-based hiring, onboarding, induction and further training along with recreational activities will create a similar aspirational value for the brands that will attach and attract the workforce. According to Lenovo’s survey of 7,500 working individuals from various nations, 44% of respondents are interested in working in the metaverse, opening up new networking options.

Faster and Smarter Recruitment

The metaverse will help HR lure young talent looking for novel opportunities and experiences. Firstly, it allows them to expand their candidate search globally. Secondly, it enables them to engage meaningfully with potential candidates and employees in interactive life-like virtual conference rooms and auditoriums. Additionally, metaverse interviews will allow HRs to assess a candidate’s cognitive and team-building skills using the interactive tasks and quizzes that can be created in the virtual metaverse worlds. According to a recent study by ExpressVPN, 3 out of 5 employees and 4 out of 5 employers in the United States, are interested in an immersive workforce and enthusiastic about the metaverse.

New-Age Onboarding & Induction

Onboarding and Induction mark far more importance than new joiners usually assert. This results in them failing to understand the crucial aspects of the company’s vision and work process. Now imagine each and every new joiner is welcomed by a 3D avatar of the CEO, an interactive structure that explains the workflow between the departments and the teams. With Metaverse HR can not only engage them with a 3D virtual workplace but also access them and their understanding of the organization with interactive games, Q&A, quizzes, etc. Moreover, each candidate can be provided with a customizable unique 3D avatar with a 3D ID card. Cool right?

Enhanced Distance Collaboration & Performance Management

An important aspect is that it improves collaboration in virtual working formats. HRs may conduct essential meetings, briefings, presentations, training sessions, and events efficiently and without any delays by utilizing the metaverse. Organizations can set up virtual systems for performance management in the metaverse that track employee output and provide real-time feedback. As a result, HRs and managers may be better equipped to tackle performance issues as well as improve employee engagement and motivation.

Workforce Strengthening - Training & Skilling

HRs can use the metaverse to build immersive experiences that help employees learn new skills, promote company values, build rapport with management, and accomplish other goals. Furthermore, different metrics within the metaverse can be added to gauge their progress and monitor elements like time spent in the metaverse, engagement levels, and leaderboards. By integrating gamification components, HRs can successfully engage employees more and improve their learning time for obtaining new skills.
Along with this opportunities for cross-skilling by collaborating with specialists in “metaverse learning” & digital coaches can help support and mentor employees. Employees can engage in group simulations and social interactions during training sessions which encourages connectivity, enabling them to build social connections using their distinct 3D avatars.

Improve Employee Retention

The metaverse presents HR departments with the chance to adjust to the shifting demands of their workforce, particularly for those who favour remote work or have grown accustomed to working from home during lockdowns. Businesses can improve employee retention by employing the metaverse to increase employee engagement, maximize productivity, and build creative rewards and recognition programs using AI-powered avatars and non-fungible tokens (NFTs). This revolutionary technology could change the workplace and increase employee retention.

A USP for Workforce Facilitators

Large organizations have multiple workforce facilitators and hiring partners who recruit on their behalf. Such large brands often require hiring partners to hire and also engage their recruits before they join finally. If you are one of them, a Metaverse platform that allows better hiring and an interactive setup that keeps the hired candidates engaged, can help you garner more such clients.

CHAPTER-6: The Next Step

Recognizing the importance of employee engagement in fostering productivity and positive company culture, it is crucial to provide extensive support and promotion in this area. Major corporations are already investigating the potential of the metaverse, including Accenture, Siemens, Infosys, Samsung, and Hyundai Mobis, running virtual workplaces, job fairs, retreats, and even run flagship initiatives and employee experiences inside it. One of the key strengths of the metaverse is its versatility. Its capability to enhance virtual-world experiences and merge them with the real world to provide fully virtual experiential environments. This adaptability allows businesses to utilize the metaverse for various purposes, from enhancing HR operations and processes to organizing large-scale training for employees .

CHAPTER-7: The Metaverse Partner

But to actualize the strength of the metaverse, you need an intelligent metaverse partner and this is where ibentos steps in. An Indo-Canadian Metaverse Brand, known for its globally successful Metaverse projects, including creating World’s first-ever Metaverse-based Jewellery Launch for NFJ Labs at Vicenzaoro, World’s First Metaverse Based Startup Incubator for BHive and Brampton Economic Development Office and many more. ibentos has been a pioneer in the field of Metaverse innovation since its inception and has always closely followed the changing trends. Our policy has always been to understand our partner’s needs and work in collaboration with them as partners. Over 100 brands choose ibentos every year and transform their brand experiences, next can be yours!
Experience business transformation in a different world of breathtaking immersive brand experiences at www.megaspace.ai