How much is the technology we’re using impacting our behaviour in meetings and our ability to collaborate effectively?
There must be a better way to meet
In May 2023, Microsoft revealed that people are in 3x more meetings and calls per week at work, than they were in February 2020 – a 192% increase.1 The average worker spends about 25% of their day in Teams meetings. However, many of these meetings are still taking place in conditions that are far from conducive to collaboration or productivity. In their Hybrid Ways of Working 2023 Global Report, Jabra found that how people were seen and heard, as well as how well they could see and hear their colleagues in remote meetings was impacting team trust, creativity, and innovation.
Although we’re collectively spending a significant portion of our time in online meetings, most meeting rooms still don’t have the right equipment. All of this led Jabra to wonder, how much is the technology we’re using impacting our behaviour in meetings and our ability to collaborate effectively?
The research at a glance
The research was conducted based on an eight-person hybrid virtual meeting group. With four of the participants sat together in the situational context of an in-room group, which was complimented by an additional four remote participants.
What - London School of Economics and Jabra research, simulating real-world meeting collaboration in different technology setups.
Who - 88 participants representing 15 nationalities.
Technology - Two conference room setups, using Jabra PanaCast 50 or nearest competitor’s video bar. Two remote setups, using Jabra Evolve2 85 audio and Jabra PanaCast 20 video, or modern laptop’s built-in microphone and camera.
Tracking - Emotion recognition, share of voice, & eye-tracking software, skin conductance response, and qualitative reporting.
Jabra gathered 500 data points per second, per person, in every meeting. Take a look at the key findings below, or download a copy of the full report to understand the biopsychological impacts of the technology we use in our day-to-day work, and how these valuable insights can help you empower your customers to collaborate more effectively in a hybrid world.
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KEY FINDINGS
#1 Face-to-face interaction is still the most preferred
While more formal meetings can be quite effective online, people still get more from face-to-face interactions. The research shows that face-to-face interactions are preferred, with in-room users rating their own intergroup interactions more favorably than virtual interactions with remote users. Being in person led to ratings of 56% more engagement, 11% more expressiveness, 8% higher quality of input, 16% more trust and 30% more for clarity of interaction than remote users, regardless of the technology they were using. However, we know that most employees still want to work flexibly. Teams should consider cultural shifts to accommodate for in-room biases, inviting the feedback of those joining remotely.
#2 Giving everyone the same professional equipment has a big impact on their meeting experience
When we shifted to remote work, most organisations gave some type of headset and maybe a webcam to employees. But even within teams and companies, the technology experience is uneven. According to Jabra’s 2023 Knowledge Worker Study, 91% are using an online meeting platform like Teams or Zoom, but only 30% use a professional headset.2 Even less a personal webcam.3
For this study, Jabra were curious about how technology impacts the quality each person can access a meeting with, and wanted to find out how much an equal playing field impacted everyone’s overall collaboration perceptions. When looking at the combined overall ratings of everyone in the meeting, there was a 27% increase in overall clarity of the technology experience, 16% more trust, 35% more reported expressiveness and a 47% perceived increase in the quality of input from all participants, when everyone was using Jabra equipment. By comparison, when participants were using a competitor video bar and built-in laptop audio, they consistently rated all experience parameters at their lowest scores.
#3 Remote workers have increased presence, impact and inclusion, when given the right equipment
Remote workers are often those who feel left out of hybrid meetings. This study discovered that when remote users take part in meetings using professional headsets and web cameras, perceptions of the meeting quality increase for everyone. Looking at trust, remote users have a 22% increase in trust for other remote participants who are also using professional technology.
Overall video clarity was also 9% higher for remote participants when everyone was using Jabra, while meeting-room users rated remote users with 32% more expressiveness and 25% higher quality of input in meetings when they were using professional equipment. Overall, remote participants who are using Jabra audio and video are perceived by in-room participants to have nearly twice the quality of engagement – 84% – compared to remote collaborators using their laptop’s built-in hardware.
#4 Meeting room equipment has a significant impact on remote users’ meeting experience
How can we bring people into a meeting room, in a way that gives them the highest opportunity to contribute to a meeting? This study discovered that when participants were collaborating using professional in-room and remote technology, remote participants reported a 56% increase in quality of input from those joining from the meeting room than when using a lower-quality video bar. They also reported 16% higher video clarity, and 11% higher trust ratings.
For remote users, the quality of input was rated as highest when those using professional headset and webcams were feeding back on others remote users in the meeting using the same technology. After this, they rated in-room meeting participants using a professional video bar as the second highest. And thirdly, in-room users rating remote users with video from a professional webcam.
#5 Technology influences how much we trust people in meetings
Trust is an enabler for all business. It opens and closes doors, deals and perhaps most importantly, it affects our mental wellbeing and productivity at work. For remote users, trust is usually harder to form than in person. What Jabra found in the research was that remote participants using and experiencing professional technology report significantly higher levels of overall trust for both other remote users and in-room users. When viewing fellow remote participants who are also using professional video, there was a 22% increase in trust rating compared to those using their built-in laptop audio and video. Looking at the average rating given for in-room and other remote participants, trust is 18% higher when remotes both experience and use professional collaboration technology.
Conclusion
Whilst the “return-to-office" debate continues, one thing remains clear, our meetings are still predominantly facilitated by online tools like Teams, Zoom and Google Meet. They’re also largely hybrid, with some mix of in-room and remote participation. And so how we find better ways to meet, and better technologies to facilitate this, will remain critical in the decade ahead. This research scratched the surface of understanding the behavioural dynamics of meetings and impact of technology. What Jabra discovered will hopefully drive an awareness between this relationship, as well as other dynamics between different meeting room participants that will help to level the playing field over time.
Read the full report to understand more. For details on the Jabra technology in the study, or how you can take advantage of their their new audio and video rebate programs, contact your Nimans account manager.
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Jabra PanaCast 50 - Video conferencing device - Zoom Certified Certified for Microsoft Teams Optimis
Jabra PanaCast 20 - Webcam - colour - 13 MP - 3840 x 2160 - audio - USB 3.0
Jabra Evolve2 85 MS Stereo - Headset - full size - Bluetooth - wireless wired - active noise cancell
Jabra Evolve2 85 MS Stereo - Headset - full size - Bluetooth - wireless wired - active noise cancell
Jabra Evolve2 85 MS Stereo - Headset - full size - Bluetooth - wireless wired - active noise cancell
Jabra Evolve2 85 MS Stereo - Headset - full size - Bluetooth - wireless wired - active noise cancell
Sources:
- Will AI Fix Work, Microsoft work Trend Index Annual Report, May 9, 2023
- Jabra Global Knowledge Worker Survey, May 2023
- Jabra Usage & Attitude Video Purchase Journey, March 2022
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