Telework is not a practice born of the health crisis. The equipment associated with his practice, in particular helmets, loudspeakers or cameras, was already available on the market and in companies.
Some, however, were better endowed than others. According to Samuel Chimchirian, head of strategic alliances for Jabra, this was particularly the case in bottom-up organizations.
A global digital experience
Thus, before 2020, “new work trends” were already emerging. The crisis has accelerated their development and opened up teleworking to a wider population of employees. The digitization of working methods is accompanied by an explosion in the use of collaborative tools.
The current trend is to organize hybridization, an approach that is acclaimed by employees and candidates – and even a factor of attractiveness. The organizational response to this expectation is not unique, however.
Major trends are emerging despite everything with a distribution of tasks between office and home, and even within different spaces in the workplace. Steelcase and Jabra, for example, promote the creation of dedicated spaces, such as small meeting rooms for face-to-face or hybrid meetings of two to three people.
Each of these places therefore corresponds to uses and optimized equipment. This question should be addressed in the context of ongoing work hybridization projects, which are still often exploratory or rolled out iteratively.
The approach must now be structured, even industrialized. The goal: to guarantee a suitable experience. The experience acquired since March 2020 highlights several points of attention.
A pair of equipment and collaborative platform
The uses of videoconferencing militate in favor of good audio quality, to hear well and to be heard. A simple detail? “What potentially undermines productivity? Untimely interruptions, lack of concentration generated by noise, etc. “, describes Samuel Chimchirian.
The intensive use of videoconferencing also causes cognitive fatigue, also called “Zoom fatigue”, in reference to the popular Zoom tool. Professional equipment makes it possible to attenuate it, thanks for example to passive and active isolation functionalities.
The high-performance microphones thus isolate the voice from the background noise. The Jabra expert insists on this issue, as cognitive fatigue can generate stress and anxiety. Clearly, alter the well-being of the employee.
Video devices make another contribution to the hybrid experience. This includes reducing the disparities between remote and face-to-face employees. The manufacturer thus offers cameras integrating several lenses via its PanaCast range. This makes it possible to extend the field of vision according to the number of people.
Taking this equipment into account as part of the hybridization of work and the associated experience is not yet a corporate standard, however, recognizes Jabra. Large accounts are beginning to show themselves sensitive to it, however.
Equip yourself with Pro, BYOD or Prosumer?
The policy in many companies, however, is to let employees equip themselves or finance their purchases without first selecting products recommended in a professional setting.
According to the “Jabra Hybrid Ways of Working 2021” study, just over 60% of employees are equipped with personal accessories or BYOD (“Bring your own device”, “bring your own device” in French). Employees may therefore tend to select consumer products, with limitations in terms of experience.
To reach this population of BYOD users, Jabra offers a range of so-called “prosumer” products (contraction of “pro” and “consumer”): Connect. Failing to pay enough attention to these devices and therefore to the user experience, companies do not take full advantage of their communication and collaboration platforms.
The hindsight in terms of hybrid work is still lacking, as is the interest that can arise from an investment in audio and video equipment. Jabra and its competitors want to evangelize and help raise awareness.
“Awareness is not shared by all companies. However, they are increasingly sensitive to it, and not only among tech players or white-collar workers. More and more, blue collar workers, employees in the field [“front line worker”, NDLR], are equipped for productivity gains. And this also concerns VSE/SME type companies,” observes Samuel Chimchirian.