Working from home has become a comfortable norm. With many companies keeping some form of remote work, including hybrid working, it becomes more and more normal for coworkers to be split between places. Many employees are working, living, and studying in the same place. Though most workers want to work remotely at least some of the time, not everyone has a good office setup at home. We’ve all conducted video meetings with screaming children, barking dogs, and clutter in the background. We’ve also seen the other end of the spectrum, with neat home offices and tidy backgrounds.

We can all appreciate the benefits of mobility—working from anywhere has been more productive for most teams and companies. It has also made it harder to unplug for many. Blending the workday into personal time has become an issue for many employees as well. Balance is hard, especially when you don’t have the perfect home office. In this blog post, we will hit some important points when it comes to video meetings. Video conferences are here to stay, and there a few tips & facts to digest to keep video calls running smoothly.

81% of those who work from home use video calling or online conferencing platforms to keep in touch with colleagues. – Pew Research

Privacy when conducting video conferences

With the significant increase in video calls and online meetings, it’s presents a good time to think about privacy differently. Spaces that were once private are now on public view. Whether it’s our beds, backyards or dining rooms, our personal lives are now the background of our important meetings. One thing to remember is to be mindful of our surroundings to ensure that we don’t show things that are too personal. In many video platforms, there are options that are great to utilize to keep your private life more private. Some of these options are background blur and virtual backgrounds.

Coming up with a plan, and being consistent with your privacy is a great way to control your video meeting surroundings. Of course you can gauge your privacy/space requirements based on your audience as well. If your team is close-knit and won’t mind your cat climbing on the keyboard, you’re all set. When conducting a serious interview or presentation, you might want to find a more professional space or background. Some companies are working hybrid/flexibly, so consider going into the office on days you know you have bigger meetings.

Taking advantage of visual aids

Being able to use visual aids, as you would in an in-person meeting, is a great tool that comes along with video conferencing. Sharing your screen and being able to point out specific areas of a document or project is highly effective. Many video conferencing systems also have a whiteboard feature where you can write, type, and draw and it will show up on the screens of your fellow callers in real time. You won’t have to say “I wish I could just show you what I mean,” because you will be able to quite literally do just that.

Ineffective audio conference calls can even create more meetings due to lack of complete understanding, which reduces productivity and increases frustration. Video meetings allow participants to make use of multiple senses, rather than strictly their ability to hear a conversation. This heightens concentration levels and allows participants to absorb more information.

Video calls can build bonds within teams/organizations

Video meetings have been a great way to help teams & companies across regions and geographies connect. It allows coworkers to work together as if they are in the same room. Companies have seen that this allows projects to move along faster, and enables teams to have concise discussions. Video is the best way to connect when in-person interactions are scarce for reasons of location or sickness.

A video call culture fosters open communication because we are able to contextualize our coworkers and their ideas. There is no need to guess as to whether we are understood and/or understanding our colleagues’ perspectives. Many times, utilizing forms of communication such as email can leave a lot of room for personal interpretation. Using video meetings instead helps build bonds and understand each other. There are also features like chat, recording, and voice transcriptions that can make it even easier to understand and keep that conversation.