After the COVID-19 outbreak, thousands of companies switched to full remote or hybrid work.

For most, the shift was beneficial: 83% of employers surveyed by PwC are happy with the productivity of their teams.

At the same time, unique challenges appeared with the progressive adoption of telecommuting: in a Buffer survey, 22% of employees struggled with unplugging after a workday, 19% grappled with loneliness, and 17% experienced communication challenges.

On the whole, the adoption of remote work helped teams be more productive, increased their average profit, and cut operating costs. However, executives are facing new challenges in team management, workplace engagement, onboarding, and training.

Virtual offices offer the benefits of a fully remote workplace and the advantages of office-based infrastructure

87% of teams recognise the benefits of an office as a hub for collaboration and building connections but few employees are ready to deal with housing and commute constraints associated with coming to a workplace.

As teams look for ways to build human interactions and facilitate collaboration without giving up the comfort and operational benefits of remote workplaces, virtual offices have gained popularity.

These platforms enable seamless and casual interactions among employees, drive spontaneous discussion, and promote a healthy corporate culture.

By designing virtual spaces for their teams, managers can create an environment that incorporates all the benefits of a physical office but doesn’t burden the company with extra cost and puts no commute stress on employees.

oVice: a multi-functional and secure virtual office platform

oVice, a Japan-based virtual office platform, is among the frontrunners of the virtual office product landscape. The idea of building a virtual office started taking shape when Sae Hyung Jung, the company’s CEO, got separated from his team at the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.

Unable to leave the country he was visiting at the time, Sae Hyung Jung used online collaboration tools (Slack, Zoom, and others) to stay in touch with the rest of the team — but quickly realised their limitations.

Teammates were no longer able to casually ask him questions and kept concerns to themselves. As such, projects took longer to complete and there was no room for onboarding and employee education.

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To mitigate the issue, Sae Hyung Jung created a prototype of oVice for internal use.

The platform quickly brought forth positive change: getting status updates became easier, teammates had a space to get to know each other, and the atmosphere of the office was restored.

Realising how helpful a virtual office tool can be to teams who suddenly had to adjust to the new normal, Sae Hyung Jung released oVice in August 2020. The reception was overwhelmingly positive: 100 companies of different scales signed up to use oVice in the week following its release.

At the moment, the platform is used by over 2,000 enterprise companies across Japan, Korea, and other countries: Toyota, Yamaha, Asahi Kasei Pharma, RICOH, and many more.

Moving the laws of a physical space to digital

Creating a real-life office online was an unprecedented challenge, leaving the team with a lot of questions and answers to find. “There was no document to explain how to incorporate physical laws so we had to solve a lot of things ourselves,” Sae Hyung Jung told JAFCO in an interview.

Among the features oVice engineers implemented to imitate a real-life space is spatial audio: a way of audio perception that simulates sound propagation in the physical world.

It allows teammates to hear the voices of people who are in the same range without needing to join calls or video conferences. The feature sets oVice apart from standard conferencing tools.

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Introducing the convenience of remote work to the office

Recognising the benefits of working remotely, oVice engineers made sure to express them in their product. For example, moving between office floors and areas takes a single click — it is considerably faster than walking between desks in a physical office.

For remote teams, oVice is a powerful alternative to standard video conferencing tools as it supports multi-participant meetings, screen sharing, text chat, and other collaboration features. Recently, the platform unveiled a partnership with Zoom, making it easier for remote teams to move their workflows to oVice.

Adding unique features

Other than making the most out of office infrastructure and remote workplaces, oVice introduces extra features to further improve collaboration efficiency.

All office layouts are customisable. Teams can change the way their space looks and explore different creative ideas: from making a full digital twin of their offices to setting up a workplace in space, on an island, or a fiction-inspired place.

oVice makes video conferences more efficient as well, through convenient tweaks like simultaneous screen sharing. The platform allows two or more meeting participants to present their screens to the rest of the audience at the same time.

Through the use of iFrames (HTML documents embedded inside a web page), teammates can share announcements, instructions, and other content.

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These and other features make oVice a powerful integration into a remote team’s internal operations. On top of that, salespeople, marketing teams, or talent managers use the platform externally to host client presentations, partner meetings, or job interviews.

Start using a virtual office for free

oVice offers teams a 14-day free trial. During this time, teams get to explore all features of a virtual office.

To help leaders make the most out of their trials, the oVice team offers step-by-step onboarding and assistance support. To have a closer look at oVice, visit the platform’s tour space where you can ask the product team more questions about the tool, its use cases, and benefits.

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This article is produced by the e27 team, sponsored by oVice

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