[Infographic] State of Virtual Office 2020

While remote work is making a legendary comeback after 2013 Yahoo embarrassment, it is pulling a unique business niche up with it. Virtual workplaces or virtual offices came out of sci-fi movie scripts and became reality a decade ago.

Between 2004-2014, the adoption rate was very low due to tech limitations and the limited number of remote working companies/teams.

As the number of remote-first companies grows exponentially, companies getting rid of office spaces/office costs started demanding more than Slack’s green dot for building culture. Primary drivers are talent diversity, productivity, cost-saving opportunities, and environmental benefits for companies.

Virtual workplaces are here to stay, so we analyzed usage statistics of the leading virtual workplace product out there today.

Special thanks to the Sococo crew who accepted sharing their massive anonymized data with us. Go ahead and try virtual offices with your team for free.

Conclusions and Virtual Workplace Predictions

1. Virtual offices are going to play an active role in women empowerment in the Gulf region where women are struggling to get integrated into business life
2. Eastern European and Asian talent already started taking seats in remote-first companies. With virtual workplaces, they will become a part of the company culture
3. Virtual workplaces are not exclusive to the remote employees, they are frequently hosting guests from outside of their companies
4. Virtual workplace tech getting integrated with commonly used meeting tools like Zoom and Google Hangouts is accelerating the adoption speed
5. Virtual workplaces are beyond professional space, it is for building a collision-rich environment for your talent, aka bringing back the watercooler discussions.

State of Virtual Office 2020 Infographic

We’ve shared some examples of how we enjoy the virtual workplace. Here you can see a virtual workplace in action or people from all around the world having a kick-ass virtual holiday party in it.

Written by Sinan Ata, founder of Exceptionly, the remote software engineering talent acquisition engine.