The world has experienced significant cultural changes in the wake of the covid 19 pandemic. It came as a shock and has so far affected many industries globally, but many companies are now back to work thanks to technology. Due to the nature of the virus, which does not allow people to have face to face interaction in social gatherings, it left many institutions, businesses, and industries between a rock and a hard place leading to their indefinite closure. Fortunately, as governments strive to control the situation, many people have realized the power of technology.
To keep the virus under control, many people have been working from home, with governments enforcing curfews to reduce the virus’s spread. That’s where video conferencing comes in. According to sixmedia.co a video conferencing platform, video conferencing has helped keep businesses and institutions afloat during the pandemic by providing an effective communication channel. Video conferencing platforms have been useful in facilitating online staff, client, and individual meetings allowing work to continue even in the covid 19 season.
Even though videoconferencing was still in existence, its use has grown rampantly during the covid 19 season. It is a great collaboration tool that facilitates the growth of a business worldwide and gives a competitive advantage. It is right to say that covid 19 has positively impacted video conferencing. Even companies that had not adopted video conferencing tools are now using them to bring employees together from their home working stations. Video conferencing is not only useful in the commercial sector but also helpful to the governmental sector. Many government ministries were the first to adopt video conferencing to facilitate discussion meetings on keeping the virus under control. Let us look at how video conferencing benefits people in the corporate, government, commercial, businesses, and generally all the sectors that utilize it.
Enhances collaborative communication
When it comes to communication, there are numerous ways of facilitating that, such as phone calls, messages, social media, or email. However, it is hard to achieve collaborative communication with such tools, as most of them facilitate individual to personal communication. Fortunately, video conferencing enhances collaborative communication among different people in different places, just like face to face meetings.
In the workplace, board meetings are essential for discussions. That is possible through video conferencing that brings people together and allows them to interact collaboratively to develop new ideas. Presentations are also possible, meaning that work continues as usual despite the social distancing and geographical separation.
It boosts productivity
One downside of facilitating work in online platforms is that employees can be slow in doing projects because there is no workplace supervision. Video conferencing helps employers counter that. Instead of sending the work via email, one can open a video conference meeting and follow up on the projects through real-time conversation.
According to a survey conducted in 2013, researchers found that many companies use video conferencing to improve the organization’s productivity. It can facilitate a client call in just a spur of a moment, and instant services are delivered faster. When decisions are made more quickly, services are provided on time, giving the company a competitive advantage, especially during this season when the economy is low.
Enhances full attendance
Since you can see everyone in the meeting in a video conference, that enhances the full attendance of meetings. Often, employees miss a meeting due to traffic jams, lateness, or geographical placing. Video conferencing promotes total attendance because everyone can log in on time and attend the meeting without any external worries of how they will get to work. It is easy for employees to miss online discussions, especially during this covid 19 season. That occurs when there is no visual communication taking place, but video conferencing eliminates that.
Saves time
One only needs to log in to the internet on the video conferencing platform to attend a meeting. That saves more time than the workplace situation of hopping from one office to another to participate in a meeting and waiting for others to arrive. Moreover, discussions are possible during any time of the day since no physical movement takes time. That increases efficiency in the workplace so that companies can make the most out of the time and recover losses caused by the pandemic.
Improved engagement
Video conferencing enhances superior engagement because there is visual communication that encourages the attendees to maintain eye contact. It is easy to get distracted in audio meetings because there is no motivation and one can often feel disengaged from the other members in the forum. Since you can see and engage with everyone else virtually on the video conference, engagement is higher. There are no distractions, and it encourages the active participation of every member.
When everyone is engaged in the meeting, all the communication skills employed in face-to-face communication are used. Therefore, decisions are made faster, increasing efficiency.
Results in more structured meetings
A good thing with video conferencing is that the time is set early, and the attendees get their login details to the meeting early enough. That eliminates wastage of time with idle talks that often happen in physical forums, and people can focus on the real agenda at hand. The video conference has a specific duration; it must end on time, which helps the attendees concentrate fully on the most critical agenda. That results in well-structured meetings that start well and finish well.
In addition to that, since everyone can see all the non-verbal cues every member uses, it enhances transparency. That is unlike email messages where feelings or intent upon a particular subject can be obscured. Consequently, it increases the efficiency of the company.
The bottom line
While widespread video conferencing has increased during the covid 19 season, we expect more of that in the future. Many companies have adopted video conferencing now, and with the various benefits associated with them, it is an all-time necessity for many institutions. It gives companies a competitive advantage through collaborative communication and well-structured meetings hence increasing efficiency and productivity.
