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Your editorial “The future of office life is not what we know it to be” (FT View, August 28) is right that Facebook’s new virtual reality tool can’t solve the challenges of hybrid work .
Wearing expensive VR headsets and pretending to be in the same space from time to time as your colleagues may work for completely remote workers, but it won’t work for hybrid workers.
Hybrid work consists of separating the work into different tasks and doing them in the place that produces the best result: a mixture of home, office or the so-called third space.
The benefits of location flexibility depend on who you are when it comes to being in the office. Virtual reality tools are unaware of the relevance of physical proximity. But a positive workplace experience (physical interaction with the right stakeholders) matters more than ever, as hybrid employees allocate remote hours to work on the desk or make Zoom calls.
When offices reopen, offering teams an agency to manage the best way to work in a hybrid pattern should outweigh leaders concerned about losing control. After all, autonomy is key to unlocking motivation and productivity.
Sally Todd
Soci, DuoMe
London SW12, United Kingdom