Travels were restricted by the start of the pandemic. It’s no surprise that it dwindled in the past years. However, many suggest that it will last even if travels are no longer restricted.
According to a poll published by YouGov, one-third of the business flyers are expected to return to the same level as before the pandemic happened. Before the businesses even sunk into problems, they maneuvered the business and found ways to keep their operations going.
Organizations transitioned to online meetings. Attendees join via video-conferencing platforms. If this is the case, let’s weigh the advantage and disadvantages of continuing the online work meeting set-ups.
Pros Of Online Work Meetings
Less Spending
Since there were restrictions on travel, companies couldn’t pursue a meeting with the team face-to-face. Traveling for online work meetings would mean that the companies had to spend more.
There are many things to prepare for face-to-face meetings such as food, flights, accommodation, or catering. Instead of spending on these expenses, the company had the chance to save the money and re-invest back to the organization for other things.
Companies can use the money for other investments. It means things like research and development, recruitment, personal development activities, and resources like cameras from a ptz camera supplier.
More Accessibility
There are companies whose teams are widely spread from different states or provinces. With the help of online work meetings, everyone can access meeting other colleagues.
Although the collaboration in face-to-face meetings is different, it’s amazing that virtual meetings can capture a wider audience. Thus, there is an increase in participation and contribution.
There are upgraded features like screen-sharing of devices from any attendees regardless of location. Online meeting games are still conducive even though there’s no physical contact.
Promotes Inclusivity
Not everyone can come to the monthly sales meeting before especially for teams who are on a tight budget for travel. Online work meetings made it accessible to everyone who should be in the meeting.
It increases participation among those who experience travel restrictions due to illness and other reasons. Companies that begin to have a globalized workforce can create policies aligning with their communication. This facilitates integration among the teams.
Environmental-friendly
Air travel is known to be significantly contributing to global CO2 emissions. Shifting towards online work meetings instead of meeting in person can help decrease the company’s carbon footprint.
Cons Of Online Work Meetings
Less Face-To-Face Contact
As much fancier as it seems to wear jogging bottoms during online work meetings, it’s reported that only 16% of people would turn their backs on face-to-face meetings.
People are still dependent on thriving off the interactions with their colleagues. It’s because we love to either collaborate or socialize.
It’s a challenge for organizations to ensure that teams and clients can build good relationships with one another. Still, it’s suggested to have even an occasional face-to-face meeting or social calls.
Difficult To Organize
Virtual meeting facilitators may be efficient with regard to preparing the necessary tools and gadgets for the meeting. But, they still find it hard to manage everyone to access the meeting.
Not everyone has the same technology or resources. For example, the team from an injection parts company medical cannot be easily gathered as one also because of their different schedules.
Technical Challenges
There will always be technical issues may be audio, visual, or most especially, Internet connections. All of these eat up a chunk of the meeting’s limited time. They also degrade the impact of content because you tend to get distracted along the way.
When you’re talking about your products – pharmacies safes, you can’t expect everything to run smoothly. Presentations must be checked beforehand to at least avoid technical challenges.
Less Appealing
For those who just graduated, they see it appealing if there will be travel opportunities. It’s an exciting perk that almost everyone wishes to experience. When your company offers only remote jobs, it might not sound appealing to them.
This is a calling for organizations to find new ways to attract candidates. There are many other compelling workplace cultures that don’t require travel.
Replacing Business Travel
For companies to replace business travel and still conduct activities, here are the following tips for you.
Virtual Conferences
Just like the education sector that found a way to host online classes, companies can also offer virtual conferences for larger meetings and events.
Team buildings might not effective to be conducted online but you can still conduct strategic planning. You can disregard travel and let everybody in the team join the planning from places of their choice.
Hybrid Meeting
Meeting halls or conference rooms for custom milk bottle companies are no longer that useful in future office set-ups. Employees opt into working from home a part of the time.
This means your meeting spaces must be upgraded to be equipped for hybrid meetings – both face-to-face and online meetings.
Conclusion
People got used to online work meetings. Many want to stay working at home but there are also some who wish to go back to the old normal set-up. There will always be advantages and disadvantages of new directions.
Weighing all of them, you should be able to decide on what to pursue for the betterment of your organization.
You can let your members do work from home and enjoy the benefits of being in such a situation or gather back everyone to work face-to-face again.