Envisioning an Ethical and Sustainable Metaverse Workplace: Beyond AI-Driven Surveillance

Eight of the ten largest American companies now use employee tracking software, which has raised concerns about invasive monitoring. Metaverse platforms then emerged as a potential alternative to restore natural workplace visibility without keystroke logging or screen capture. While most metaverse workplace implementations were abandoned quickly, Zigbang, a South Korean company operating entirely through its metaverse platform since 2022, stands as a notable exception. Through our mixed-method analysis of employee experiences and stakeholder perspectives, we identify three factors that undermine metaverse workplace sustainability: the persistence of surveillance proxies over meaningful performance assessment, design choices that prioritize realism over digital innovation, and the absence of governance frameworks specific to metaverse workplaces. Our findings reveal that metaverse workplaces often perpetuate and amplify problematic management paradigms rather than transcend them. Using these insights, we propose frameworks for task-specific monitoring, digital-first design, and governance guidelines to aid development of ethical and sustainable metaverse workplaces.