Remote work and remote conferencing is increasing in popularity and it will most likely continue to increase. As a distributed company with team members working from different locations all over the world, how else will your business ensure that everyone is communicating and no member of the team is left out?
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Obviously it’s impractical and expensive to gather everyone together in a single room for a traditional meeting.
One thing that isn’t impractical however, is hosting a remote web meeting. And with a wide variety of online conferencing apps to choose from, it has never been easier for teams to meet over the internet, network and share information.
And with the right software you can even hold training sessions.
If you still don’t believe, here are 9 remote conferencing statistics that might convince you:
Global Workplace Analytics
80% to 90% of the US workforce says they would like to telework at least part time, 36% said they would choose it over a pay raise.
90%? That’s huge.
For most people, having to commute for long hours everyday to get to work is a headache, some of these people even have young kids they have to take care of and their spouse works too, so no luck in that direction. Having to juggle work, parenting, home responsibilities and an annoying and unproductive 4 hour (2 hours to and 2 hours from) commute is not something they look forward to.
For people like these, being able to work remotely would be a dream come true.
And with remote conferencing they can keep tabs on every important aspect of their work.
Wainhouse Research
94% of businesses that utilize video conferencing say it increases productivity.
How so?
Take email for instance, you can spend hours on end in an email tug-of-war where each party is trying to explain and re-clarify their point of views.
A video conference on the other hand helps solve the problem with face-to-face conversation, it minimizes the possibility of miscommunication or misinterpretation and most importantly it frees up time by eliminating the unproductive back-and-forth that is characteristic of such emails. So maybe it’s time to switch to remote conferencing and increase productivity.
FUZE
87% of people in the workforce work on distributed teams – domestically or internationally.
If your company has 20 offices scattered over the globe and there’s a team member in each location that’s a distributed team. If you’re part of such a team the best bet for collaborating and getting stuff done is by holding meetings by video or audio conferencing.
IMCCA
Nearly 9 in 10 remote employees say that video conferencing helps them feel more connected to their colleagues.
As the cliche goes “it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.” So, sometimes the tone or body language is what actually gets the message across. You can’t read tone of expression or subtle cues in an email. When a co-worker needs encouragement, you can’t flash a reassuring smile at her over an SMS (and emojis don’t even come close).
But the good news is– all these can be done via remote conferencing.
These subtle gestures might not look like much but they are the very things that draw us closer and make us feel more connected to one another.
No Jitter
87% more people use video conferencing today than 2 years ago.
From the look of things, video conferencing appears to have come to stay, conference rooms are gradually becoming video-enabled, more and more people are starting to jump on the remote conferencing bandwagon because it’s cheap, and time effective.
PGI
Businesses using remote video conferencing see a 30% reduction in travel costs.
According to Visually, the average business trip costs $949 per person for domestic travel and $2,600 for international.
And that’s just the financial cost, don’t even get me started on the countless other things that could go wrong.
For instance, accidents might cause you to sit in traffic for a few extra hours, bad weather or low visibility might see you travelling at a tortuous 20 mph on a snow covered highway or if you’re flying it might see your plane circling over an airport for about an hour waiting for clearance on whether to land or not, only for it to get diverted to another airport 4 hours away.
With a simple video conference you can save yourself all these unnecessary troubles, and if you do it with the right noise cancelling app you can even have noiseless remote conferencing at any time.
66% of candidates prefer to video during the interview process. For both HR teams and potential employees, video offers an easy way to meet face-to-face.
As far as the hiring process is concerned remote conferencing can help to eliminate unnecessary in-person interviews.
And if you feel you should involve other decision makers who might not be able to make the scheduled time? All you have to do is record the meeting and have them playback the video when they are available. That way, they can assess the candidate and decide whether or not, he’s a good fit for the company.
Do you feel you should cast your nets wider and hire even more qualified applicants from overseas? Why not, they don’t have to go to the trouble of getting a visa or a flight ticket. All you have to do is set up and prepare for remote interview.
Owl Labs
16% of global companies are fully remote.
Yes! There are such companies that do not require you to come in to the office and sit at a desk in a cubicle from 9 to 5. If you’ve been dreaming of working for such companies, today is one of the best days to be alive. If you had this dream some 20 – 30 years ago and you told people they would probably laugh at you but look who’s smiling now.
However, just like any other job you’re also required to bring your A game, to pool talent and strengths; to brainstorm with colleagues; and to provide value.
With remote conferencing you can do all of this and even more.
Companies that allow remote work experience 25% less employee turnover than companies that do not allow remote work.
Companies that prohibit remote work are doing so at their own detriment, because most of their employees are only there pending the time they’ll get a job at a different company, one that allows or even encourages remote work.
OVER TO YOU
Now you’ve seen the stats and the facts, would you be willing to try remote conferencing? If you’ve tried it before, how did it go? How did you manage background noises during the call?
Have you tried noise cancelling apps like Krisp before? It integrates easily with all the best remote conferencing softwares around.
