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From virtual meetings to immersive training simulations, the metaverse is no longer science fiction. Immersive platforms that support virtual, augmented, and mixed realities are already being used in pockets of the professional world.
We’re far from the reality that Mark Zuckerberg promised us when he reoriented his whole company around metaverse development. In fact, he significantly scaled back all metaverse-related projects to focus on AI. But while Meta is no longer the driving force behind VR-powered immersive platforms, organizations are still experimenting with workplace applications of the tech. And as they do, we enter a whole new era of workplace dynamics – especially when it comes to “mattering.”
“‘Mattering’ concerns one’s sense of identity at work, a sense of feeling valued and recognized at work beyond day-to-day tasks,” said Emma Vaast, Professor of Information Systems at McGill University, in a recent podcast interview.
She explained that the metaverse will demand new ways of working together, expressing ourselves, and mattering at work. It’s a new type of online existence. Can metaverses be the next frontier in workplace inclusivity, or will it simply be a new tool for digital surveillance and dehumanization?
A whole new way of being
While AI continues to dominate conversations in tech, industries have quietly been experimenting with metaverses across different use cases. In aviation and medicine, immersive platforms can be valuable tools for training, simulating real-life situations to better prepare workers and students while reducing costs. Newly-hired remote employees can virtually explore office spaces, meet their peers, and engage with day-to-day tasks in a digital environment. In the classroom, immersive technologies can allow students to go on field trips without ever getting on a bus. One day, a meeting in the metaverse may be as common as a video call.
But for all of its potential practical benefits, Vaast’s recent paper calls attention to the human interactions in these spaces. What does it mean to work in an immersive, virtual world?
“Being a worker in 2026 is hard,” she said on the McGill Delve podcast. We need to do impression management all the time.”
We’re managing ourselves in the office through how we dress and speak. On Zoom, we’re mindful of lighting, camera angles, and backgrounds. On LinkedIn, we’re mindful of our professional networks whenever we post.
“It’s exhausting,” said Vaast. “And now we add the metaverse.”
It took a while for an etiquette to emerge around text messaging and other asynchronous communications. The metaverse will likely go through a similar period of figuring things out, said Vaast.
“It’s very different in terms of how we present ourselves.”
There isn’t a unified definition of the “metaverse.” But in a general sense, it’s understood as an immersive, online world, where humans can interact in a 3D space. Users put on a VR headset, and they’re immediately transported into a new space, whole body and all – no more floating heads on a video call.
Features of the metaverse will vary depending on the platform. But you can expect to create a virtual avatar for yourself, much like in a video game. You can choose your hair, eyes, clothes, and other features. This is how you will appear to others in the online space.
On one level, the metaverse could be a new frontier for flexible, inclusive, and accessible workplaces. A person who is transgender can choose an avatar that better reflects how they identify, reducing the risk of being misgendered. Someone with a physical disability can choose whether to hide it, to protect against potential stigma. A person with a language barrier can ask for live subtitles when someone else is speaking.
But on another level, digitizing human interactions like this comes with a slew of challenges for managers and workers, least of all being the uncanny valley – where people may feel disoriented or uneasy when interacting with each other through avatars. Workers in the metaverse are also more easily monitored, each action reduced to a datapoint, raising questions about the surveillance economy. Not everyone will be thrilled about constant monitoring in their virtual workplace.
More than a datapoint
For Vaast, the datafication of human interactions through the metaverse raises important questions about ‘mattering’ at work. Data can measure productivity, but does it capture someone’s full value as a person? And if not, how can managers help workers in the metaverse feel valued, despite their metrics?
“It depends on the context,” she said.
An organization’s culture may encourage a data-driven way of managing the metaverse, or not. Wider attitudes in society will also influence how metaverses develop and how humans act within them. As the metaverse evolves, organizations must decide on what kind of digital workplaces they want to build.
This article was inspired by the research paper titled “Mattering in the metaverse: Re-imagining inclusive futures of work with immersive platforms,” by Emma Vaast. Published in The Journal of Strategic Information Systems.
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