THUNDER BAY – TECH – Web conferencing offers a lot of people, across many different industries, a ton of benefits. These include:
- Less travel costs, according to B2B Marketing’s “6 Benefits of Video Conferencing” and Chron’s “Benefits of Using Web Conferencing in Business.”
- Flexible work solutions that answer a growing demand for greater flexibility in the workplace, according to the Harvard Business Review “To Raise Productivity, Let More Employees Work from Home”.
- “Video Conferencing Benefits” from the Mobile Village cites reduced stress and costs associated with travel and commute.
These benefits are easy to see in a business setting. But they don’t have to be limited to companies and startups. Here are some of the ways other industries are catching up and improving their video conferencing use:
Human Resources
According to the “6 Ways HR Can Benefit from Video Conferencing” posted on the Cisco blog, hiring teams are able to attract more talent because of flexible working solutions that video conferencing tools make possible. They also enjoy shorter processing times because with video, it’s easier to see if a talent will fit in or not. They won’t have to only rely on resumes and phone interviews to get the job done. Faster processing of applications means lower costs per hire and those savings can easily reflect on the company’s bottom line. Also, because of flexible work solutions, employees are less likely to resign, so attrition is low, saving the company rehiring and retraining costs.
Engineering
According to Lifesize’s “The Real Business Benefits of Video Conferencing,” video conferencing gave engineers a way to easily refine product designs, preventing long delays in the production line. In the past, companies needed to fly in their experts who would usually just spend 15 minutes to resolve an issue. That wasn’t productive for the employee and neither was it cost-effective for the company. With video conferencing, expert consultants could easily resolve those issues and still have plenty of time to get back to their own work. The less travel meant companies could slash their travel budgets in half. But it also meant less stress on employees and less people filing for sick days so that was a win on so many levels.
Training
Some companies used to spend so much on travel and costs associated with travel just to get management trainings done. If your HQ is in Europe and you’re sending over teams from all over Asia and the U.S., you’re going to run a very long and costly bill. With video conferencing, companies are able to cut those training costs by more than half. Now, they can reduce one-on-one sessions to a week instead of a month and manage the rest of the training through video. And because of the recording capability of video conferencing systems, employees are able to go through the sessions again and take note of important details and observations.
Healthcare Industry
For Dr. Frank Casey, a consultant pediatric cardiologist with the Clark Clinic at the Royal Belfast Hospital, and cited in the Guardian’s “Telehealth: the benefits of Video Conferencing,” the technology offered them a chance to offer traditional care with telehealth. They could monitor children from home and parents could get in touch with them quickly when worrying symptoms appeared. With video conferencing, doctors could consult with more patients and reach out to patients who lived far from the city. It also helped them network with other doctors and share accurate diagnosis within the first 24-48 hours for emergency cases.
Legal
A lot of lawyers work charge by the hour. But getting to and from a client’s house wasn’t part of their billable hours so if they had to spend 2 days on travel or commute, then that’s 2 days wasted. With video conferencing, lawyers are able to take in calls anytime, anywhere. With travel time reduced, they’ve gained back more of their billable hours.
Freelancers
Freelancers are able to take advantage of video conferencing tools to reach out to a global market of clients. It’s the numbers game at work. The more clients they have access to, the faster they can build a solid and thriving freelance career. This is where video comes in handy. It’s easier to work with someone you can see. That face to face element to the exchange fosters a friendly atmosphere between clients and freelancers. Freelancers, though, have to be careful about picking a video conferencing tool. Some outsource their audio or video and that could make for a blurry video or rough audio environment. For online business meetings, Blue jeans is one of the brands that offer reliable, superior video quality. With its high definition camera, freelancers and clients won’t have a problem meeting eye to eye or going through pages of work for review or revision.
Parents
Flexible work solutions work the best for parents. As the same article on the Harvard Business Review site mentioned, work from home solutions are ideal for employees who already have ‘established social lives’—which wholly capture the essence of parent life. In the example of JetBlue, the company was able to hire and recruit talent they needed by offering highly qualified mothers with flexible work solutions. This way, the company didn’t have to compromise on the quality and level of expertise they required from their talents, satisfying hiring standards and ensuring that the quality of the workforce remained high.
SOURCES:
http://smallbusiness.chron.com/benefits-using-conferencing-business-3093.html
https://hbr.org/2014/01/to-raise-productivity-let-more-employees-work-from-home
http://blogs.cisco.com/collaboration/6-ways-hr-can-benefit-from-video-conferencing
http://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2012/aug/22/telemedicine-telehealth-video-conferencing
