How Technology enables us to work remotely
By Julie Rodney.
Having been working from home for several years now, I have found that technology plays an important role when communicating with others. In such unfortunate and unplanned situations like the current pandemic lockdown where we have been forced to close offices, restrict our travel and adopt home-working to keep businesses running, we need to reduce the extent to which employees are exposed to any potential risks. For this reason, it is now becoming a business necessity to provide staff with the required tools to remain connected and contactable in an effective, simple and secure way. Virtual meeting rooms are the way to go in times of crisis. The benefits of virtual meeting rooms are as follows:
- Multiple people on one call
- Presentations
- Weekly catch-up staff meetings
- Sales meetings
- Screen & file sharing
- Training
To help conduct business during these challenging times, the following are effective solutions:
- Zoom Video Conferencing:
Zoom is a cloud-based video conferencing platform that can be used for video conferencing meetings, audio conferencing, webinars, meeting recordings, and live chat.
Sign-up is free and you can use the app for up to 45 minutes at a time at no cost. - Skype for Business:
Skype for Business is enterprise instant messaging software developed by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft Office suite. It is designed for use with the on-premise Skype for Business Server software and has a software as a service (SAAS) version offered as part of MS Office 365. - Microsoft Teams:
Microsoft Teams is a unified communication and collaboration platform that combines persistent workplace chat, video meetings, file storage, and application integration. - Google Meet:
Google Meet does not suck up too much battery and can now intelligently filter out background noise like keyboard typing and doors opening and closing as well as traffic noises. Meets are encrypted in transmission and when stored on Google Drive and normally have a 60-minute time limit on meetings for the free product but this has been waived until 30 September 2020.
