At the height of lockdown, 60% of the UK adult population were working from home. People had to adapt to new circumstances because of Covid-19, and businesses had to swiftly invent coping strategies that included adopting project management tools and exploring the benefits of video conferencing. The outcomes make interesting reading, with 85% of working adults now wanting a hybrid approach to working between home and office. If video conferencing tools weren’t so crucial before, they certainly are now.
Tools already exist for operating a remote workforce and have hugely improved since hybrid working models have become popular talking points. Of the remote tools available to us, video conferencing has become so popular, major providers like Zoom reported a 169% jump in revenue when we began remote working because of the pandemic.
And most people see the upside of screen time with colleagues: 71% of respondents in a Forbes survey found video conferencing had many similar benefits to face-to-face. This is great news if you’re running a mostly remote workforce. In this article, let’s look at the benefits of video conferencing.
How video calls can help you improve meetings
In-person meetings will always be important. There’s something about the energy you get from being in the same room as someone that simply can’t be replaced or replicated. And savvy leadership teams shouldn’t try to replace it. Video conferencing solutions have their own benefits to show off, so let’s dive in and take a look at the best.
Reach a wide audience. If you think about the benefits of YouTube or television, it’s the ability to deliver your message to people wherever they are in the world. A video call is no different. We’ve all sat in an airless room surrounded by tired people, attending to be seen, rather than constructively contributing.
Imagine a scenario where routine meetings are a thing of the past, and video calls occur when there’s a reason to do so. This increases engagement, attendance and energy, wherever people are. And when you increase employee engagement, you improve business outcomes.
Conduct better meetings. If you’re locked into a formal template for meetings, you’re missing out on the fun. Video calls represent an opportunity to mix things up, use whiteboards, collaborate, demonstrate, learn and teach. Employee training is sometimes expensive (the UK Department for Education says the average is £1,530 per employee), and you can only train as many people as can fit in a room. Video conferencing tools could enable your HR leadership team to construct and deliver training plans that reach more people in more places. External guests could be invited to your meetings, something you may not have been able to do had you been purely office-based. A California-based sales coach for your London-based remote workers? No problem!
Add to these benefits the ability to record video calls, so that people can find them later for reference. This means an archive is built that contains every great video workshop that was booked, and employees don’t have to sit and take real-time notes. There are no limits to how imaginative you can be in creating better meeting environments.
How video conferencing can expand your management skills
From a senior leadership perspective, the benefits of video conferencing are palpable. Here are two of the best things about video calls for business leaders:
Improve client and customer relationships. Creating better relationships with external contacts is easier thanks to video conferencing. All of the above points apply, in that you can remotely use whiteboards and share documents, and you can build trust by having regular face time that doesn’t require a long commute. This means you can work with clients and customers near and far, who don’t necessarily have to exist within a few miles of your organisation.
Connect with employees. One of our favourite benefits is being able to arrange online breakfast meet-ups with colleagues we don’t see regularly. This isn’t a meeting to talk shop either. It’s a way to simply get to know how people are doing, make connections, and engender an environment of care.
The head of the HR leadership team may find that video conferencing is a great way to remind teams that they are cared about – they’re not isolated or forgotten. Checking in with employees frequently is a good idea. When teams are remote, they may interact only with one another. Introducing breakfast meet-ups – where we eat cereal and drink coffee over a video call for 20 minutes – helps establish bridges between people from different teams. Forbes found that 74% of executives interviewed thought video conferences helped remote teams to contribute meaningfully to discussions.
You can never underestimate the importance of people management, so empower your senior leadership teams with every tool at your disposal to help people thrive in whatever they choose to call their workplace.
The pandemic threw a spanner in the works of many office-based businesses. And the outcomes have been clear: employees want hybrid working flexibility. Business thought leadership is heading this way too, as we see more remote work job postings. With video conferencing tools now offering more digital opportunities than ever before, hybrid flexibility is more achievable and realistic.
Having the right tools at your disposal can provide the edge required to stay competitive. In a world that wants more flexibility to work remotely, the benefits of video conferencing far outweigh any negatives.
