With the recent coronavirus pandemic throwing the world into lockdown, businesses around the world have had to move their day to day operations online and into the virtual world. Employees have been working from home thanks to the power of the internet and remote working tools like video conference calls and cloud-based file sharing. As you may have expected, for many people this is a dream come true and many of the new remote workers would like for this trend of working from home to continue even after the pandemic is in the past. In this article, we aim to provide information on how working from home and virtual meetings can increase business performance.
Cost-cutting
With no end in sight to pandemic, businesses can save considerable amounts of money by getting rid of the big offices they once used and instead shrinking them to a small space to be used only when necessary. Virtual meetings allow teams to communicate and work together without needing physical contact so these large, modern office spaces may soon become obsolete.
In addition, business trips to see clients or other offices may soon, for the most part, be in the past. With virtual meetings, there is rarely the need to physically travel around the country or around the world since you can communicate so effectively via the internet.
The tools available to you
In a video conference call, in addition to connecting people to each other, you are also connecting their computers. These computers offer plenty of tools that can allow workers to share data via screen sharing and screen sharing.
One of the few downsides of working from home means that during video conference calls, distractions caused by things in the background are a regular and unfortunate occurrence. However, thanks to modern technology, these distractions can be easily avoided using a virtual background zoom integrated directly into the software itself. There are more number of options available to choose from so you can easily find a good background to suit any occasion without the need to buy a physical green screen.
Widen your talent pool
In the past, when businesses were restricted to hiring people mostly from their surrounding area, the available talent pool was relatively limited. However, now that working remotely is not only an option but an effective one, companies can search a wider area for potential new employees. This allows companies to truly search for the best possible option, rather than having to settle for whoever is in the immediate geographical area. In turn, having the best possible employees will help a business thrive and grow, especially once the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic is behind us.
Make your world smaller
While virtual meetings and video conference calls can help your business by giving you access to new talent, they also give you a new platform to reach more clients and potential customers. Using things like webinars, you can present products or services to huge numbers of people anywhere in the world. A webinar is simply online seminar that makes it extremely easy and cheap to showcase new things with potentially tens of thousands of viewers. Things like polls, surveys, and Q&As can also be used in these webinars to get valuable feedback on whatever is being presented. Allowing you to get great feedback without having to bring outsiders into your office space.
Revolutionize your average meeting
Finally, the format of a virtual meeting is by no means standardized. You can hold a quick, 10-minute meeting to catch up with your team, or you can organize long training sessions with select employees. With this technology, meetings can be adapted to the needs of the participants, allowing you to get the most out of both your employees and your time. We do, however, recommend that create an agenda for any online meeting you host as it is very easy to go off track when you are communicating online. An agenda, time-sensitive or otherwise, helps to prevent distractions, ensures that you cover everything you need to, and keeps things moving forward at a reasonable pace. In short, virtual meetings offer far more flexibility than their face to face counterparts and, when used correctly, can be invaluable to any business whether they be an established corporation or a new and growing startup.
