With the COVID-19 pandemic changing the ways in which we work, many aspects of business have organically adjusted over a short period of time.
One particular condition of the pandemic is its effects on the nature of meetings - especially in-person meetings. These are now being replaced by a hybrid model that must support both in-person and remote participants.
A combination of factors is forcing us to take a good look at why and how we meet, so that organizations can alter their solutions in order to meet the new criteria around in-person meetings.
The end goal? For companies to provide an equal experience to both in-person and newly remote participants, and to ensure meetings are seamless and effective for all parties involved.
Here are the top four challenges to consider when developing new methodology for in-person meetings and what technology solutions to power them with:
Reduced capacity
Businesses are operating with a reduced capacity of employees in the office. There are more remote employees than ever, and companies are coming back to work with only 20% - 70% headcount of workers actually being physically present in the office.
Some businesses are staggering the office re-entry of their workforce by specific days or in certain employee groups or pods. With less people in the office, it can create challenges for employees to collaborate with each other, especially now that they are working with a combination of individuals who are in the office and working from home.
Travel restrictions
In a recent T1V webinar on the impact of COVID-19 in the UCC space, Dr. David B. Agus - one of the world’s leading physicians, CEO of the Ellison Institute of USC, contributor to CBS news, and a T1V ThinkHub user explained that it will be some time before business travel resumes to a degree of anything like it used to be.
Mandated travel rules are still in a constant state of flux and large business events and meetings are going virtual instead. This makes it difficult to connect with colleagues, prospects, and clients in-person.
Less overall travel creates an undeniable need for more room-to-room meetings, whether those rooms are home to office, office to office, or home to home communication scenarios.
It’s imperative the organizations find solutions that can keep their teams connected, despite not being able to travel for in-person meetings. The new ‘in-person’ meeting must account for remote employees and even entire remote offices being able to connect and collaborate on a shared platform.
Social distancing
Large-format displays have a huge role to play when we look at social distancing requirements in meeting spaces. For those who are in-room - whether in a large conference room or smaller huddle space - having a large display makes it easier to view content together, while still maintaining the appropriate social distance. Meeting participants can spread out but remain engaged by easily visualizing ALL of their meeting content, including but not limited to remote participants via video conference , presentations, shared device screens, and more.
The other challenge social distancing creates for in-person meetings is the limitation on the number of in-room meeting participants. Staying safely apart from colleagues in a meeting room means that you can only have a certain number of people in the room, therefore creating an issue with people overflow for a meeting - even if you’re all in the same building. The new norm - for a big board meeting, or company-wide meeting, for example - may be to host one meeting from two or three separate rooms within the same office building. In these instances, it’s crucial for organizations to provide a solution that enables rooms to stay connected for a shared collaboration experience.
Distance disparity
">A big issue with the separation between these rooms - either the meeting rooms in the same office or the distance created on the far end, like WFH spaces and executive home offices - is the disadvantage that can exist for remote participants.
Often, if people are not physically in the actual meeting space, they can feel limited with their participation in the session - if they’re unable to share their screen, contribute content in real-time, or communicate face-to-face.
With meetings like product demos and project brainstorms happening daily and people connecting from all different locations, it is key to equip both meeting rooms and work from home offices with, touch technology, collaborative software options, and VC options so that all team members can communicate effective, no matter their location -- to equalize the experience for both in-room and remote participants
Speaking of video conferencing - we’re all familiar with “Zoom fatigue.” 2D communication is a real issue, as our expert Dr. Agus informs us, “the human brain wasn’t wired for Zoom.” 3D, physical interaction is more natural to the human brain - it allows the brain to relax and retain more information - which is key to productivity.. The more interaction you can provide in your meeting environment - such as the ability to drag and drop and manipulate content by touch, rather than simply viewing content - the more engaged your meeting participants will be.
These challenges prove that meetings where all participants are in-person, in one room, are going to be less and less common as we navigate through the post COVID-19 business world.
Luckily, T1V’s Work From Anywhere (WFA) solutions are here to help.
Our WFA bundles:
- Reduce distance disparity for an equal experience for all meeting participants
- Support a hybrid work model, where people split time between their home and the office
- Empower all participants to be active, contributing, and productive team members, no matter where they are
These bundles take our flagship collaboration product, ThinkHub and throw in our feature add-on, ThinkHub MultiSite, for real-time room-to-room collaboration and your choice of video conferencing integration (choose from BlueJeans, MS Teams, Skype For Business, Webex, or Zoom).
Our WFA bundles are available in a range of hardware options to fit whatever your work environment may be. Whether you’re outfitting a meeting room or huddle space in the office, or want to outfit your employees’ home office - these bundles enable anyone to work from anywhere.
Download our T1V Work From Anywhere One Sheet for more information on our WFA bundles, and how they can bridge the gap between remote and in-person meeting participants.