Last Saturday an estimated 10 million people from all over the world attended a concert. The concert featured a set by 'DJ Marshmello' who played 2018 hits including Everyday and Happier.
What's really interesting about this concert was that it was a virtual one, hosted completely in Fortnite- the massively popular (approximately 125 million players) online video game. Yet if you ask someone who watched it they're more likely to say they were actually there.
This concert represents a glimpse into a burgeoning future of hyper-collaboration and shared experiences all taking place in a virtual world. A reality that's already happening around the world with thanks to VR applications such as Microsoft'sAltspace.
In many ways, it gives food for thought as to how the 'newer' generations may well work together over the coming years.
As flexible working starts to become more normalised, for example, new research from flexible working expertsTimewisehas revealed thatalmost nine in ten (87%) of the UK's full-time workforce either currently work flexibly or would like to do so. The need for new ways to collaborate and work effectively with our peers will only increase.
Perhaps Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) offer us a new template to create mechanisms to create and innovate.
Challenges facing organisations today
When we think about some of the challenges facing organisations today in terms of tapping into the best pool of talent possible we can immediately see some big paradoxes:
- More people wanting to work in a freelance way, whilst traditional organisations wanting to have a core pool of permanent employees
- More organisations wanting better and fresher ideas whilst limiting collaboration and depending on a relatively small group of people to enable this to happen
- Individuals wanting to be involved in more interesting projects whilst many organisations are still focused on routine tasks and functions
Could gamifying the workplace be a solution?
Imagine a world where every organisation has a hyper-collaboration virtual space tapping into the world's talent pool, creating 'games' and projects to be worked on. New experiments trialled, new learning's shared. Participants could sign in for certain 'events', creating new ideas, learning from others and receiving micro-payments for their contributions.
All these technologies and approaches exist. It's just that we don't necessarily view them through the lens of 'work'. It's time for the world of work to start catching up with the world of leisure.
The Cpl Future of Work Institute is an initiative that explores, questions and helps design future work solutions with our clients, partners collaborators and candidates.
We conduct research, workshops and engagements across 7 core areas: Diversity & Inclusion, Talent Technology, Employer Proposition, New Workforce Models, Creative Leadership, Government & Regulatory, Future Skills.