How Video Conferencing Supports Remote Work

For years now, companies have shared and celebrated the benefits of video conferencing for remote and mobile working. In a world where employees spend less time face-to-face, video offers an easy way to remain engaged and connected. 

Despite steady increase in video adoption, however, many companies have been struggling to make the full transition into this new landscape. When 2020 hit, and brought the COVID-19 virus with it, the world experienced the push into the virtual world we were waiting for. Communications tools to enable distance collaboration became essential to every organisation. 

In March alone, organisations downloaded around 62 million applications for business efficiency and productivity. Perhaps the most valuable app of all for today’s companies is the video conferencing service. 

Here’s your guide to how video conferencing tools enable and support remote work. 

1. Interviewing and HR

One of the most significant areas for video today is in hiring and talent discovery. With a video conference, companies can book meetings with candidates all over the world, without having to worry about booking rooms or arranging travel. Teams can vet potential employees with pre-recording assessments, ensuring that the person is a good fit before they visit the office. 

Video in the HR landscape allows companies to ask crucial questions when assessing candidates fast. If you’re struggling to find the time to review all applications for a high-volume position, video can streamline the process. Plus, video functionality allows users to quickly schedule interviews with in-demand candidates who live out of town or have limited availability.

Coordinating video interviews saves time and money while giving hiring managers an efficient way to effectively contrast and compare candidates without holding up the hiring timeline. What’s more, candidates benefit from a better hiring experience. Professionals appreciate not having to take time out of a busy schedule to travel to an interview. 

1. Onboarding talent

After successfully leveraging video for hiring, companies can use the same technology to welcome people to the team. A good onboarding process is the key to a successful and engaged employee. Since research shows that hiring a new employee can cost the same as up to nine months of salary, successfully engaging team members straight away is great for the bottom line.

Onboarding video opportunities might include:

• HR introductions: Pre-recorded messages explaining the values and requirements of your business. You can use this content to address questions about payroll, benefits, and paid time off, while introducing brand information.
• How-to videos: Give team members a basic overview of everything they need to get started. Explain how to set up a business email address, which tools to use for everyday work, and where to go for help.
• Troubleshooting videos: Provide solutions that will help employees to solve problems on their own. This reduces the impact on your IT team when your staff are getting used to a new environment.

Video-based onboarding provides the intimate face-to-face experience that new hires need during the early stages of entering a business. At the same time, it frees essential members of staff up to focus on more important tasks.

1. Collaboration and teamwork

Perhaps the biggest benefit of video for remote workers is its ability to enhance collaborative experiences. As the number of remote workers and distributed teams increases, the demand for video opportunities is exploding. The market will reach a value of around $10.5 billion by 2026. 

Video replaces the traditional meeting room in an office environment with an easy method of face-to-face communication. Remote employees can move closer to the crucial human connections they would get by seeing people in the office, without leaving their home. 

Through the cloud and the right video software, employees have access to an affordable and efficient method of consistent communication. Video conferencing can even be more effective than traditional in-person conversation in some cases. With video, you can access enhanced functions like in-line transcription to reduce the risk of misunderstanding, or even real-time translation.

For compliance, training, and other purposes, employees can also record video meetings, and search through them for useful pieces of information at a later stage. Now that video conferencing technology is easier to access, all it takes is a click of a button to start a meeting with employees all around the globe. 

1. Training and development

As the workplace continues to evolve, the skills that team members need are transforming too. The most common training method across companies today is classroom training – a process that mimics the traditional landscape we’re used to at school. 

However, training employees via video could be a more cost-effective and productive way to develop new skills. With conferencing, a training professional can provide an immersive learning experience with various members of staff at the same time, reducing the amount of strain on company resources. In the case of Ernst & Young, when the team implemented video training they reduced training time by 52%, and costs by 35%. 

Training and employee education videos can include everything from basic skills training sessions on-demand, to videos that support managers making the shift into a new leadership position. Companies can create customer service and sales training videos, or even use prior recordings and conversations as examples for peer to peer knowledge sharing. 

Webinars are becoming an increasingly compelling part of the video training landscape. With webinars, employers can show a huge selection of team members content, insights, and information at the same time. It’s also possible to record webinar sessions and send them on-demand to employees that can’t attend a session. 

1. Employee engagement

Providing your team members with the right selection of skills is important. However, it’s also essential to ensure that you’re keeping your workforce engaged and informed. There are lots of amazing ways to boost engagement in the workforce with video. For instance, you could host a virtual event where you reveal valuable information about what’s happening in the company and industry.

The 2018 Enterprise Video Survey from Brightcove found that 67% of employees say that they prefer live-stream video to pre-recorded video for events. 

When events aren’t the right choice, team leaders can invite employees to take part in all-hands meetings, where they discuss what’s happening in the organisation, and what kind of challenges the team needs to overcome. These sessions are an excellent way to keep employees up-to-date on what’s happening in the organisation. 

Another option may be to provide useful feedback and recognition through video. It’s easy to feel isolated and disconnected from the business when working in a remote environment. However, employees that feel appreciated are more likely to stay with your brand. This saves companies thousands in recruiting and training expenses. 

The value of video

Even as team members return to the world of work, experts believe that video conferencing and remote working will continue to accelerate. We’re entering a landscape where anywhere work is the new norm, and video enables this reality. 

Now’s the right time for all companies to begin investing in video and discovering what it can do for their workforce.