As we emerge from COVID-19 restrictions and transition to a hybrid dominated workforce, organizations, teams, and employees are asking, how do I decide between voice and video?
Joanna Stern, personal technology columnist at the Wall Street Journal, presents five steps to make the decision easier for teams across all industries:
- Determine if a meeting is necessary before deciding on a technology format.
- Understand the benefits of video versus audio conferencing. With advances in technology, both audio and video collaboration sound and look better than ever. However, a high frequency of video calls can lead to general, social, emotional, visual, and motivational fatigue. Stern recommends reserving video calls for important or personal conversations, meetings where facial expression is crucial, team building or interactive activities, and meetings with people that you have not seen for a while.
- When scheduling, be clear about the preferred technology format beforehand so meeting participants are prepared.
- Facilitate a collaborative meeting. Both video and audio conferencing can enable a flexible, productive, and successful team environment.
- Try “no-video” days. To help alleviate video call fatigue and burnout, organizations such as Citigroup and UC Berkley have implemented policies that prohibit internal video calls on specific days.
Audio and video conferencing each have benefits for their respective meeting types, which keeps the audience focused on content and tasks. Using a combination of both audio-only and video conferencing can increase productivity and efficiency for remote, hybrid, and in-person teams.
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