The shift from at-office work, to online conferencing and the work from home paradigm has proved to be the answer to industries that do not depend on the vis-à-vis approach to getting work done. While working remotely is a stepping stone that supports efficient, pandemic-proof operations, has the integration of the individual worker been lost in transition? Yes, absolutely. Ask just about anyone who now enjoys back to back Zoom meetings five days a week.
Another common complaint of remote employees is the lack of concentration that comes from operating out of your house. Whether it’s tending to family, pets, housekeeping, and other daily activities that pull us from our momentum at the desk, finding a better integration to keep one’s productivity at a good level has to be the next step in making augmented reality a staple of any business.
The COVID-19 epoch is challenging every industry to figure out how to keep employees engaged and effective – when public health is a loaded question. Fortunately, there is a solution that works. Augmented reality presents a way to interact more naturally and effectively with tasks that heretofore required physical presentation. With instant connectivity at the crux of our devices, to keep up in this world we must collaborate at an instant. The Internet of Things has conditioned our businesses and behaviors to respond according to digital requests or demand. For many of us, going out isn’t possible without Yelp. Checking for real-time news isn’t performed without checking Twitter. A conference call is made possible by Zoom. But there remains an element to these connections that hasn’t fully captured the human experience. It’s the reason more employees yearn to return to the office – despite the risk and concern of infection. One gift of augmented reality is that it connects modern work production with the social dynamic, and restores the feeling of inclusion in both virtual and on-premise environments.
With education, retail, marketing, and other fields shifting to remote operations, an increase in AR support and training solves the unnatural (and exhausting) experience of 2-dimensional video meetings, screen sharing, and the like. By being able to see what your fellow workers see through augmented reality, team building is enhanced. AR provides a more personal and easier to understand method of tackling a problem by putting teams of people in the same situation. For business owners, the benefits of connecting through AR can provide similar experiences that meet the desire for employees yearning for the “old normal” of office space – while reducing overhead, commuting costs, etc.
Being able to connect with your employee or co-worker without physical offices is possible through AR/mixed reality in ways that video calling has yet to achieve. Collaboration and immersive learning is made possible through AR by plugging multiple workers into a digital rendering of a situation, providing a 4-dimensional experience rather than 8 hours at the monitor.
In May 2020, amidst a very uncertain point in time during COVID-19, I co-recorded a human-factors approach to the virtual workspace and Top 10 Keys to Optimal Employee Engagement and Collaboration. The discussion highlights the light at the end of the tunnel in terms of case rates for COVID, which was fairly dim at the time. The time to provide the workforce with immersive, highly realistic connections that foster productivity and employee satisfaction is now.
As a collaboration tool, augmented reality combined with other techniques, helps the employee engage in the content of their work deeper by becoming a part of a real-time exchange of data rather than waiting on chat for instructions. It is an opportunity for shared experiences to become a part of the workplace again, even as people are quarantined or distanced for health concerns. It is an immediate solution for a generation of instant requests.
When employees are confident to fulfill tasks in real-time, businesses will succeed. And this is where augmented reality shines. Let this time be one where your business succeeds, not one of uncertainty and risk. Thrive while saving time and money by providing employees with tools that inspire drive and passion. AVATAR Partners has created a suite of augmented and immersive reality solutions to do just that — and it is a key to business growth and profit, both during COVID and once this pandemic is well behind us. At AVATAR Partners we forecasted the need to collaborate virtually, and took the requisite steps to support our customers’ growth and profit by utilizing tomorrow’s technology today. No longer will the physical limits of operating a business loom over your company when working with AVATAR Partners.
With today’s immersive realities proving to be a steady foundation on which to support the workforce and business objectives, and with Microsoft, Google and many others, developing the next generation of AR-enabled glasses (and even contacts), the timeline for the next big thing is now. The worldwide pandemic asked immersive reality what it is capable of now, and the result is surprisingly useful and long-term. Augmented reality can transform living rooms into co-inhabited office spaces. This creates satisfaction and business success, either in or out of a pandemic. Now is the time to leverage AR so that all employees excel and propel business forward.
To learn more about Avatar Partners and the real-time solutions of AR/VR, please contact or visit our website.