Keeping your teams productive in the age of video conferencing

You wake up fresh in the morning, ready for the long list of tasks that await you today. These are tasks that will be done as soon as you're done with the few meetings on your diary.

At least that's what you think. Because little by little, video calls to "take stock" or to "ask a simple question" add up to everything else. And without you even realising it, the day has passed and the tasks you wanted to tackle head-on in the morning are still patiently waiting for you.

At a time when remote working and video calls are becoming the norm, many of us find it difficult to break this vicious circle.

It would then be easy to blame our frequently clicked video conferencing application for this lack of productivity. An application that we seem to spend far more time on than we should. But as our days get longer, our schedules get busier and there's no end to the working day in sight, it's surely time to identify the real cause of the problem.

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Will this call really help you to see the situation more clearly?

Our diaries were already filled with meetings. Some of them had clear agendas, and others were a little less organised. But at a time when organisations are trying to adapt to new working conditions with geographically dispersed teams, it's common to be increasingly overwhelmed by events.

Unfortunately, this fear of missing out often materialises in the form of a series of sync meetings to "take stock". Via video conference. Ongoing.

But before you schedule another call, ask yourself, "What do I really expect from this call?" For many of us, the answer is in one of the following:

Take stock

Having lost the rhythm you've become accustomed to in the office, you're probably worried about the status of a project or even the unannounced loss of one of your clients.

So, in an effort to remedy the quick stop by the office to "ask a quick question," the 15-minute innocuous calls to take stock have multiplied.

Keeping up to date

We can no longer afford the comfort of sharing office space where we have the opportunity to implement decisions made, share accumulated knowledge and see the progress made.

If you don't have a collaborative digital workplace with a centralised source of information, you and your team are often left scrambling for data. This is often due to the fact that our tools - whether they are CRMs, ERPs or something else - are not connected. And in fact, sometimes they even remain disconnected from the needs of our employees.

That's why we're holding more and more video conferences to make up for the lack of information.

When you spend the first 10 minutes of a call just getting on the same page, sharing information and filling in information gaps, meetings are less about moving forward and more about repetitively keeping up to date.

And when these meetings are chained together all day, it's even worse.

Finding stability in everyday exchanges

Let's be honest. With this challenge, it would be unfair to ignore the fact that most of us miss our colleagues. We like to chat and share what we're working on, especially at a time when you've lost the opportunity to chat with a co-worker in the hallway. Many employees schedule calls just to reconnect.

Calls are for people, tools are for data

For large-scale plans and brainstorming sessions, there's no substitute for a strategic meeting.

But if you're meeting to share data, collaborate on specific work tasks or just "ask a quick question" - then you have a problem with the tools or the platform, not a video conference.

If you are spending a lot of time on Zoom for the reasons mentioned above (to take stock, to keep up to date or to maintain stability in day-to-day exchanges) it is obvious that you are using one application too often or ignoring all other tools.

Sharing basic information all day puts a strain on you and your team and leaves no room for creative brainstorming, project planning and other initiatives where calls can add significant value.

Determine when a video call should take place: Transparency goes both ways

As we slowly get used to the norms of remote working, we realise that tasks are still getting done, projects are still progressing and the sky hasn't really fallen yet - and a normal daily rhythm is emerging.

Transparent calendars. Protecting your most valuable asset (your team) from video call fatigue is a priority, and this can be difficult when you need to be online all the time. By setting realistic expectations and tolerating the fact that your employees need time off too, you give your teams the opportunity to recharge their batteries.

Here at monday.com, we've encouraged people to put "family time" in their calendars - and respect it. Because we set our expectations early on, we were able to avoid the problem of lack of productivity due to numerous video calls.

Establish why we need video calls: The same principles still apply

Some video calls need to happen - in some cases, there's no substitute for the kind of creativity and energy that meeting with others brings. But given our new remote working reality, we've gone way beyond that.

So before you instinctively schedule another Zoom meeting, consider the following points:

YES to calls that allow you to get an overview, hold your weekly sessions as well as meetings where you need to move forward as a group, and track your team projects that require real collaboration not covered by tools.

NO to calls designed to share data, take stock, collaborate on documents or design, ask a "quick question" and all meetings at times that should be free.

Let your tools help you!

If you try to resolve every issue via video conferencing, you are using up your mental energy processing information instead of using it in real collaborative and creative work.

By identifying tasks that can be done with tools, rather than people, then organisation-wide processes will run more smoothly. This in turn means that you will stop accumulating video calls.

In this regard, if you feel that your organisation does not have the tools to meet these needs, you may have a problem with the applications and not the video calls themselves.

When critically considering all the tools used in your organisation, you should pay particular attention to the following elements:

• Flexibility. Can this tool be used for a variety of working methods and techniques and can it be used by different teams?
  
• Integration. If it's a collaborative tool where your employees need to access information with confidence, then this application needs to be able to work with all the tools used by your teams.
  
• Transparency. Giving everyone in the organisation access to the information they need means they can be autonomous and complete their tasks without having to spend 30 minutes on another video call.

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Looking to the future

The habits and working patterns that will build up during this time have the potential to define your company culture and processes for years to come. Use this time to define clear rules and introduce the use of suitable applications that will allow you to apply optimal workflows within your organisation.

So zoom in responsibly.

Promotional article. The experts are independent authors from the appvizer editorial team. Their comments and positions are personal.