The Future of Hybrid Work: Demelza Green on ABC's "This Working Life"

January 16, 2025

EDITORS NOTE

The ABC's "This Working Life" is Australia's premier podcast on workplace culture and innovation. In this episode, Patient Zero Co-CEO Demelza Green joins host Lisa Leong to unpack the reality of Hybrid Work and how emerging tools like Virtual Reality (VR) are replacing the "water cooler" for distributed teams.

Key Takeaways for Leaders

  • Culture Over Location: As a 100% onshore but distributed consultancy, Patient Zero proves that you don't need a single office to build a cohesive culture. You need intentional connection points.
  • The Role of VR: Virtual Reality isn't just for gaming. As Demelza explains, it provides a "third space" for remote teams to collaborate spatially, bridging the gap between video calls and physical meetings.
  • Hybrid Maturity: This feature validates that Patient Zero is operating at the cutting edge of Workplace Innovation, practising what we preach when we advise clients on digital transformation.

The "Third Space" Experiment

Why would a pragmatic engineering firm bother with the Metaverse?


As Demelza explains to Lisa, it wasn't about jumping on a hype train; it was about solving a very specific human problem: The loss of the "spark."


Video calls are excellent for transactional updates, but they are terrible for energy. You can't make eye contact, you can't read body language, and you certainly can't "bump into" someone.


Patient Zero’s experiment with Horizon Workrooms proved that VR offers a "Third Space", a digital office where the laws of physics (mostly) apply.


  • Spatial Audio: If someone speaks to your left, you hear them on your left. It sounds simple, but it reduces cognitive load and "Zoom Fatigue" instantly.
  • The High-Five Effect: Our teams end meetings with a virtual high-five. It sounds silly, but the haptic feedback creates a genuine psychological connection that a "Thumbs Up" emoji can never replicate.
  • Presence without Commute: It gives distributed teams the feeling of "being at to work" together, without the 45-minute drive.


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