Issue 26 | Page 86

NEWS
PICTURE : TOM BANKS

Welcome to

Virteen !

Thirteen creates virtual world for employee interaction
MAIN PICTURE : TOM BANKS
Creator – Thirteen ’ s head of IT Hassan Bahrani has worked with Virbela to develop Virteen , a new online world for employee interaction .

O ne of the issues facing many large organisations during the pandemic has been about providing effective methods for employees to engage with each other while working from home .

Webinars are useful and phone calls have their place , but nothing quite matches up to those face-to-face meetings that were so important in the pre-Covid world .
In an attempt to fill this gap in conversation , Middlesbrough-based Thirteen Housing turned to an innovative online platform that gives staff the ability to meet-up and have the more informal interactions which video calling systems can ’ t quite replicate .
Thirteen worked with developer Virbela to launch a bespoke virtual campus , a web-based system where staff can create their own avatar , navigate their way around an online world to attend meetings , events and presentations , and have those impromptu encounters that colleagues have been missing .
Thirteen ’ s new system – dubbed
Virteen – gives staff the ability to log-on and interact with each other in a virtual world .
Hassan Bahrani is Thirteen ’ s head of IT , who worked with Virbela to develop Virteen .
“ As agile working was already well integrated within Thirteen ’ s culture , the transition to working from home for our office-based staff was relatively smooth .”
Hassan said : “ We work closely with colleagues in our facilities and HR teams , and last year they surveyed staff about how they felt the home-working arrangements were going for them .
“ Alongside anecdotal comments that we were hearing from staff across the business , a common thread running throughout these discussions centred on how much people missed bumping into each other and having those allimportant spontaneous conversations .
“ We ’ ve been using Teams as a collaborative tool for a few years now , and while it ’ s been great for formal , planned meetings , we found that it has its limitations when it comes to the more informal catch-ups .”
Hassan thinks that the Virbela platform offers a glimpse into the future of work post-Covid : a place where the water cooler talk can be replicated , increasing chance encounters and boosting collaborative working .
Virteen also offers an escape from home-working offices , providing staff with a sense that they have taken a trip somewhere , which could help to tackle wellbeing issues that prolonged working from home presents .
He continued : “ As agile working was already well integrated within Thirteen ’ s culture , the transition to working from home for our office-based staff was relatively smooth . However , the inevitable lack of face-to-face contact and the loss of those water-cooler
86 | Tees Business