How XR will transform workplace collaboration

The office of the future may not have a phys­i­cal loca­tion. The immer­sive pow­er of XR, or extend­ed real­i­ty, will elim­i­nate the prob­lem of dis­tance and bring employ­ees togeth­er in a new kind of decen­tralised work­place, where aug­ment­ed real­i­ty (AR) and vir­tu­al real­i­ty (VR) are the norm.

In many com­pa­nies, XR is already enabling employ­ees to col­lab­o­rate with one anoth­er in new ways, fun­da­men­tal­ly shift­ing the way post-indus­tri­al busi­ness­es oper­ate. This trend will con­tin­ue on an upwards tra­jec­to­ry, accord­ing to research from the man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy Accen­ture, which found that 80 per cent of exec­u­tives believe it’s impor­tant to lever­age XR solu­tions to close the gap of phys­i­cal dis­tance when engag­ing employ­ees and cus­tomers.

Com­pared to an email or phone call, this way of work­ing is a much more human expe­ri­ence

“It will essen­tial­ly call for an end to dis­tance as know it,” says Ben Ben­nett, founder of Lumi­nous Group. “The abil­i­ty to col­lab­o­rate across cities, coun­tries and even con­ti­nents will be enhanced dra­mat­i­cal­ly.”

Lumi­nous Group, a Microsoft-accred­it­ed mixed real­i­ty part­ner, deliv­ers dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion to organ­i­sa­tions through the use of XR tech­nolo­gies. Increas­ing­ly, com­pa­nies such as these will emerge as estab­lished organ­i­sa­tions look to imple­ment XR strate­gies as part of a shift to new, more remote ways of work­ing.

How XR is transforming remote working 

At Deloitte, XR is being used in this way. Ed Greig, chief dis­rup­tor at Deloitte Dig­i­tal, says the glob­al man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy is shift­ing to a remote-first approach. This means the first option is for an enter­prise solu­tion to be used by a remote work­er, rather than ini­tial­ly design­ing an office expe­ri­ence and then down­grad­ing it.

“These XR tools mean mak­ing this expe­ri­ence feel nat­ur­al and enjoy­able is get­ting eas­i­er all of the time,” says Mr Greig. The com­pa­ny has already made strides in imple­ment­ing mixed real­i­ty into its col­lab­o­ra­tive process­es.

With teams sta­tioned around the world, meet­ings are often held in vir­tu­al spaces with atten­dees appear­ing as avatars. “These vir­tu­al meet­ings allow us to col­lab­o­rate in a work­shop-style set­ting, as opposed to a stan­dard voice or video tele­con­fer­ence,” he says.

More com­pa­nies are expect­ed to look to XR solu­tions to bol­ster their remote work­ing options. Accenture’s 2017 report on the key tech­nolo­gies dri­ving cor­po­rate change found that com­pa­nies are increas­ing­ly turn­ing to XR as a new way to address prob­lems around dis­tance. The report also found that 27 per cent of exec­u­tives think it’s impor­tant for their organ­i­sa­tion to be pio­neers in XR solu­tions.

The true power of XR comes when a range of tools work together

“Suc­cess­ful col­lab­o­ra­tion comes from effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion of ideas,” says Karl Mad­dix, chief exec­u­tive of VR col­lab­o­ra­tion soft­ware devel­op­ment com­pa­ny Mas­ters of Pie. “This is not some­thing XR has a monop­oly on, but it can def­i­nite­ly improve.”

Mr Mad­dix says a suite of XR tools will be essen­tial for ver­sa­tile col­lab­o­ra­tive process­es that remove fric­tion for employ­ees. “AR is fan­tas­tic for con­tex­tu­al­is­ing 3D data, while with VR the real envi­ron­men­tal infor­ma­tion is lost, but full immer­sion can be achieved,” he says.

The sweet spot is when a range of XR tools work togeth­er in dif­fer­ent stages of a project. Mr Mad­dix uses an exam­ple of a new man­u­fac­tur­ing robot, which could be mea­sured up for the fac­to­ry while the design­ers are still at the con­cep­tu­al phase. 3D-design data could then be shared with an on-site fac­to­ry work­er who could make sug­ges­tions based on the holo­graph­ic over­lay in the phys­i­cal envi­ron­ment.

Real-time col­lab­o­ra­tion would then enable design adjust­ments to be made on the fly and enhanced by input from out­side exper­tise. By adding sim­u­la­tion sup­port and VR into the mix, a team could have non-experts adjust the way the robot moves in real time.

“Shar­ing real-time data across mul­ti­ple devices in this way can dra­mat­i­cal­ly improve the way teams can work togeth­er on com­plex prob­lems, whether they are locat­ed togeth­er or spread out across the globe,” says Mr Mad­dix.

Using XR in this way will enhance human connection, not diminish it

Experts agree that for a sce­nario like this to become real­i­ty, there needs to be exten­sive cross-organ­i­sa­tion­al buy-in first. While all the indi­ca­tors point to XR being ingrained in the future of work, cyn­i­cism nonethe­less remains around how it com­pares with face-to-face com­mu­ni­ca­tion.

“Peo­ple quite right­ly wor­ry about remov­ing the human ele­ment from our inter­ac­tions,” Mr Greig says. “How­ev­er, com­pared to an email or phone call, this way of work­ing is a much more human expe­ri­ence.”

Mr Ben­net con­curs: “There’s no doubt that there is still very much a time and place where face-to-face com­mu­ni­ca­tion is essen­tial, but over time, as the tech­nol­o­gy devel­ops, for­mal­i­ties may be replaced by prac­ti­cal­i­ty.”

While Mr Mad­dix con­cludes: “XR offers a bridge between the tra­di­tion­al tele­phone call and face-to-face inter­ac­tions, allow­ing peo­ple to feel like they’re in the same place when it’s logis­ti­cal­ly impos­si­ble.”