Living on Video

The pandemic ushered in an era of remote work faster than we could have ever imagined. Last March, as organizations closed their offices and employees set-up their home office spaces we looked toward the tiny circle at the top of our computer, tablet, and cell phone screens for connection with our colleagues and clients.

While some organizations were better prepared to support remote working and collaboration than others, over the past 14 months a significant portion of organizations and employees in the US have figured out how to collaborate virtually.

Even after 14 months and some significant technology advancements, there's data that suggests that being in the same physical space during meetings and conversations remains superior to virtual collaboration. A recent study conducted by Steelcase Inc. indicated that a sense of isolation, productivity issues, and speed of decision making ranked among the top three challenges of working from home in the United States.

When we speak to leaders and their teams, they acknowledge that while virtual collaboration has kept work moving, the challenges uncovered in Steelcase's study are real. Furthermore, team leaders are concerned that as some workers return to the workplace while others remain working from home at least part of the time, these challenges could be exasperated.

Workers collaborating in the same physical space can have a much different experience than the workers participating virtually. Those working together in the same room will have the benefit of both direct verbal feedback and secondary cues such as body language, facial expressions, and eye-contact. The virtual participants may have challenges with delays in video and audio making it difficult to jump into the conversation and interject. Additionally, diluted secondary communication cues such as the ability to read body language can make it difficult for virtual participants to "read the room" and evaluate how their colleague or client's secondary cues match up to their verbal responses. All of this can have a significant impact on connection, building trust, equity and inclusion, and the overall effectiveness of the discussion.

Does this mean that the case for the office has been made and workers surely will be heading back into the office just as before when they can? Probably not. The same study by Steelcase indicated that 72% of respondents expected to work in some sort of hybrid model which included working from home or remotely at least one day per week. Several other recent studies have suggested similar findings.

Our life, or at least our work-life on video will remain. With that, organizations will need to put focus and investment into supporting the braiding of physical and virtual connection. This focus will be critical to the engagement of employees and the effectiveness of their interactions. Some initial areas where organizations can start include:

Equipment

Employees need functioning equipment that covers the basics of a working camera, clear audio (in and out), and pre-loaded software for joining the most prevalent virtual collaboration platforms that they may be using (Teams, Zoom, Webex, etc.).

Bandwidth

Slow internet speeds can be a major disruptor of virtual collaboration and something that does not just impact the individual with delayed video or audio. The frozen screen of a colleague or delayed audio response is distracting for everyone participating in the call. Organizations and leaders should be evaluating their remote worker's access to adequate internet connection and working with those with an internet connection that could impact their ability to collaborate virtually with video and audio on a solution (which may include going to a workspace with adequate internet connection). Additionally, many organizations need to assess their own bandwidth capacity in their offices as employees are returning and using more bandwidth through video collaboration with remote colleagues and client's than they did prior to the pandemic.

Training and Support

Adequate training is critical for organizations striving for a consistently effective virtual collaboration experience among their teams. Training should include everything for how to use their hardware and software, to meeting norms and protocols, and guidelines around lighting and acoustics to enhance real-time visual and audio connection between participants. Quick support from a help desk for when team members run into issues that they can address on their own is also important. Without proper IT support, a remote worker could lose hours or even days of productivity when they run into technical issues with their connection, software, or equipment.

Office Assessment

The use of video collaboration by organizations varied greatly prior to the pandemic. Some organizations who did not use video collaboration widely scrambled to provide remote workers with the tools that they needed to meet virtually during quarantine. As their workers prepare to return to the office they are finding that their spaces support a pre-pandemic way of working which includes much less video collaboration than what has now become the norm for their organization and even their industry as a whole. Organizations will need assess their workplace and consider everything from bandwidth capabilities (as outlines above) to the number and types of spaces needed to accommodate their team's new way of working and interacting.

As more workers have the opportunity to meet and connect in-person it will be critical for organizations to ensure that the interaction between in-person and remote workers (of which there will likely remain many, and many more than prior to the pandemic) is inclusive, equitable, and productive. How this should happen will vary greatly from organization-to-organization. Spark Advisory has a variety of tools and engagements to help organizations assess and address their video collaboration needs.