Many organizations will make a gradual, staged attempt to get employees back into the office full-time. IT managers and leaders will therefore face the challenge of supporting office and remote workers at the same time. It is going to be another, exciting stage of competition between the Zoom and Teams platforms.
The problems that await us after returning to traditional work include: coming to the office of partially sick people, lack of social distance, and also… air circulation. This is to be remedied by innovations announced on Wednesday by Zoom.
4 out of 5 people working remotely declare that after lifting the restrictions, they would like to be able to work remotely at least 50%. So it seems, that the hybrid formula will become more and more common. With this in mind, Zoom – one of the largest videoconferencing software vendors – introduces innovations to help: virtually check in at the reception desk, hand over security protocols, and monitor overflow in the conference room. The following functionalities will help the company smoothly transition to the new, hybrid formula.
Virtual reception
In Zoom’s vision, there is no employee at the reception desk. Instead, the employee is greeted by … a tablet device, by means of which people coming to the office connect with a person who is physically located in another room or even another building. The device has been manufactured for Zoom by DTEN Inc. from the telecommunications industry. Just click “Start Meeting” on Zoom Rooms for Touch in the lobby to connect with the receptionist. He can guide them through temperature control and other health and safety procedures as needed.
Zoom room
Zoom introduces the option to pair its iOS or Android mobile client with the Zoom Room. This allows you to join Zoom Room meetings directly from your device. Thanks to the Zoom Rooms Controller application on a mobile phone, we can have access to additional room controls, including the ability to start or join a meeting and fully control audio, video and participants. This way, individual users will be able to control their conference room experience from a mobile device, eliminating the need for users to touch the shared controller in the room.
Air quality monitoring
Zoom has chosen to synchronize with Neat Sense, a system that enables continuous management of air quality, humidity, the presence of CO2 and volatile organic compounds (organic chemicals, odors, etc.). The tool also allows managers and employees to see how many people are in one room in real time – by detecting their contours – to ensure meeting spaces are not overcrowded. All data and statistics on this data are fully available in the Zoom panel from February 11.
Time will show, whether Zoom’s functionalities, aimed at filling the gap between office and remote employees, will set the direction in adapting office technologies to the new, hybrid nature of work.
Marcin Kapuściński – Transition Technologies MS S.A.
