Firm Replaces Every Desk with VR Glasses Offering Views of Places Staff Cannot Visit

There are no desks on the eighth floor of Hargreaves Crake. Associates stand in small, apologetic clusters, wearing VR glasses and holding things that previously went on desks.

Octavia Venn, the UK Super Sister’s newly appointed Head of Innovation, meets me beside a man trying to put a coffee on a virtual shelf.

“He’s still transitioning,” she says.

Martin Pavey: What exactly have you replaced?

Octavia Venn: Every desk. Partners, associates, business services, reception. All of them. Everyone now has VR glasses and a work environment that can go wherever they go. We’re the first firm to deliver genuinely universal flexibility.

Pavey: Where are the desks?

Venn: Sold. We felt retaining them would send a mixed message about our commitment to change.

Pavey: Where do people put their arms?

Venn: We’ve got a very active adoption channel.

The demonstration

Venn hands me a pair of glasses. Within seconds, I am on a terrace in Bali. The sea is turquoise. A breeze moves the palms. Three urgent document reviews hover above a swimming pool.

“Look towards the horizon,” she says.

I do. A time-recording reminder follows my eyes.

An associate appears at the edge of the terrace, asks which version the partner approved and disappears before either of us answers. Venn explains that the office layer remains active in every destination.

I attempt to walk towards the pool. A red boundary warns me that I am approaching a printer.

Pavey: What can staff do here that they couldn’t do at a desk?

Venn: Experience Bali. Experience the Alps. Experience a quiet room. Some colleagues have never had access to a quiet room before.

Pavey: Is it quiet?

Venn: Visually, completely. The notifications remain audible because we don’t want wellbeing to compromise responsiveness.

Pavey: How does this work from home?

Venn: At home, the glasses put you permanently inside the office. You can see your colleagues, your supervising partner and the client availability queue. In the office, they put you somewhere you might prefer to be. We call that flexibility in both directions.

Pavey: Can a client contact someone at any time?

Venn: That’s the service proposition. We’ve removed the uncertainty of wondering whether your lawyer has reached their desk.

Pavey: Because they haven’t got one.

Venn: Exactly. “We have removed the desk as a place you can leave.”

Somewhere quieter

Venn switches me to Alpine Sanctuary. Snow falls noiselessly through a redline of a share purchase agreement. Far below, a cable car contains the restructuring team.

“They requested a separate space,” she explains. “It still arrives on our floor every four minutes.”

A partner’s face fills the sky. He asks whether I have five minutes. I take the glasses off.

Venn checks a dashboard.

Venn: You’ve just generated an unexplained absence.

Pavey: I’m standing beside you.

Venn: Physically. We’re trying to move beyond that as our primary definition of presence.

Pavey: What happens when somebody stops working?

Venn: They select an appropriate status. Available, available remotely, available with family, or available with reduced visual engagement.

Pavey: Asleep?

Venn: We’re working on the language. The client testing suggested “reduced visual engagement” was less concerning.

Pavey: Has this affected working hours?

Venn: We’re no longer asking people to stay late at the office. They’re free to go anywhere with a stable connection. One associate completed a disclosure exercise from the Maldives last night.

Pavey: The actual Maldives?

Venn: She was in Croydon. But her experience score was excellent.

As we finish, the man with the coffee asks whether Facilities can provide a surface. Venn directs him to the feedback form hovering over the ocean.

Pavey: What about holidays?

Venn: Sicily, Kyoto and the Amalfi Coast are in the next software release. We’ve been very clear that the destinations available at launch are only the beginning.