WHAT MAKES YOUR WORKFORCE MORE PRODUCTIVE?
As a public speaker who has addressed nearly 3,000 audiences over the last two decades, I thought the “digital meeting” would decimate in person meetings. Since I had done a few meetings for Microsoft, I thought their software GoToMeeting would foreshadow the end of my career. Surely, Virtual meetings would save time, money, and replace the reasons to spend money on hotels and airfare shipping the teams off to a remote location.
Then, in 2015, I saw an article published from NPR titled Making a Case for Face to Face This expose made me feel a little better. I already knew that meeting face to face was excellent for networking. I saw the value in people meeting coworkers and clients they had only spoken over the phone. Most importantly, when everybody is in the same room, all looking at the same charts and graphs, the corporate messages were not as likely to be miscommunicated.
Also, the digital meeting platform wasn’t very reliable.
Six years ago, broadband internet wasn’t as widely accessible. 5G was still a fantasy. In those early Microsoft meetings, my Apple MacBook wasn’t always compatible with their Windows machines and the frequent signal dropouts delivered a less than desirable outcome.
Enter Covid-19 and the Global shutdown.
The in-person meetings were cancelled. Hotels were shut down. We all stayed home to figure out how to keep the pulse of a business alive through the new digital platforms; ZOOM, SKYPE, FaceTime, BlueJeans, and Microsoft’s upgraded Microsoft Teams.
These platforms revolutionized the workplace. Companies realized they could get the same amount of work done without seeing employees in person. Now that companies are asking people to come back to the office, most employees are opting for a hybrid work week – two days in the office – three days at home.
Naturally I was curious to know how the world’s biggest digital companies were managing the new workforce dynamics.
I got my chance when I was contacted by the e-learning division of Adobe (Carahsoft). Director of Marketing, Samantha Hermes, asked me to do a One-Hour Virtual event to teach on-camera skills and explain how my WOW vs. POW customer service solution was boosting customers scores and addressing the recent spike in higher expectations voiced by their customers.
I asked Samantha who would participate in the meeting and she shared something that I didn’t expect, “Our older workforce is looking forward to your insight and we think you will enjoy how well our younger team members are flourishing in this format.” My first suspicion was wrong. I asked, “Is it because younger people are accustomed to communicating through web cams on their laptops?” She said, “No, it’s because when their face comes online in a box the same size as a senior executive, they realize this is an eye-to-eye situation. They can’t hide. If a young person is asked a question, their answer is being watched by their senior executive.” I asked, “Does this intimidate them?” She said, “Not at all. They see it as a rare opportunity to get face time with the boss and it actually accelerates the on-boarding process. These people are thriving during the digital meeting.”
When Hermes said, “They can’t hide.” I totally got it. When a new hire comes to work for you, they are likely reticent to speak up. Traditionally they would be more inclined to shadow other coworkers and “hide” a little until they felt more comfortable with the landscape. But if a new hire were thrust into a ZOOM box with several coworkers (and the boss) this is a test by fire of equalizing all positions. This is similar to what I heard teachers talk about when children were suddenly expected to learn online. My 15-year-old daughter went 100% virtual in 9th grade. She was often online with 28 other students in boxes. While my daughter wasn’t a fan of online classes, her science teacher said, “The shy kids cannot escape my view.” My daughter’s 2020 PSAT score was 1,050. But we were all encouraged when her 2021 score bounced to 1,260! Her online study and learning habits outcome was much better than we could have predicted; which may help explain why PSAT scores in 2021 were up slightly from 2020.
As we know now, Virtual meetings are not going away. In fact, I think we need to see the advantages of communicating digitally. The resulting benefit of accelerating onboarding is worth the investment in time and self-esteem.
Ross Shafer is a former TV Emmy winning talk and game show host who, for the last 22 years, has been a consultant to Fortune 500 companies. Mr. Shafer has written (10) business books on Leadership, Customer Experience, Motivating Teams, and Growing Market Share. www.RossShafer.com