MANPOWER ISLAND -- Move over traditional hierarchical work model, here comes virtual work. It's the way of the future, and it's not going to leave. At least that's the opinion of the CEO of Manpower Inc., the world's second-largest provider of temporary employees.

Manpower, Inc. , the Milwaukee Wis.-based employment firm with 4,400 franchise offices in more than 70 countries, held a panel discussion in Second Life entitled "The World of Virtual Work" earlier today to launch its new sim, Manpower Island. Held in a cavernous amphitheatre with floating spherical chairs, the one-hour panel attracted nearly 70 attendees.

Featured panelists included Manpower, Inc.'s Chairman and CEO Jeff Joerres (Jeffe Decosta on Second Life); Tammy Johns (Alexa Tammas in SL), Senior Vice President of Workforce Strategy at Manpower; Colin Parris (Xiran Klaar in SL), IBM's Head of Digital Convergence Team; Algis Leveckis, Co-founder and CEO of QuestG; and Kimberly Rufer-Bach (Kim Anubis in SL), founder of The Magicians. Daniel Terdiman (GreeterDan Godel in SL), senior reporter at CNET, moderated the panel.

Discussions touched on how the meaning of "virtual work" has a new dimension because of the exploration of virtual worlds as places to conduct work as well as provide employee training and development opportunities.

Joerres stated that the virtual world is clearly here to stay and will grow and become more relevant to the real world moving into the future.

"Second Life may be an extreme now, but that gap is going to continue to close," said Joerres, adding that for Manpower, "it's really about what's now and what's next in the world of work" both in the real and virtual worlds.

Johns spoke about the changing dynamic of work. "The world of work is in a very interesting spot, from the talent shortage to the virtualization of work, it's a great opportunity to match talent and skill to demand regardless of the distance," said Johns, adding that the "old hierarchical work models don't quite fit and they need to be redefined."

Parris compared the skepticism he hears today about Second Life from clients or co-workers to the questions he heard 12 years ago when he was part of the team at IBM that championed the Internet at his company.

"I look back from then – everything got better. We had the access problems – we solved those. We had security issues – we solved those," said Parris, adding, "We're at the early days – it is the Wild West in some sense, but I can clearly see the future because there are analogies that are there and a lot of inhibitors that are not."

Johns said that Manpower will have avatars on their island at all times so visitors will have the opportunity to engage in discussions about work, fill out surveys and find out about job seeking opportunities within the island and the real world.

In an interview following the panel, Joerres admitted that measuring a return on his company's investment in SL is hard to measure.

"There are certain things in business that require a leap of faith," said Joerres.