The modern workplace would be unimaginable without email. It’s a convenient and simple way to communicate basic information to co-workers, employees and customers, but there are limits to email’s effectiveness. Have you ever tried to conduct a brainstorming session via email? Or taken action items into the realm of text-based communication? Such conversations become a morass of competing voices, and as a result, meaning is lost in a volley of words.
There is definitely a time and a place for email. Newsletters, intra-office bulletins, logistical notices and the like can be handily dispatched with an email message. But for exchanges that require lengthier conversations and input from multiple people, video conferencing is a far superior medium.
Emails eliminate such fundamental aspects of effective communication as body language and facial expressions. Without these visual cues, misunderstandings can arise all too easily. Additionally, an email thread with multiple recipients can leave vital voices out of the mix, as it can be intimidating and downright annoying to try to get one’s “voice” heard in a never-ending group email. With video conferencing solutions, the full range of expressions are in play and it is impossible for participants to fade into the background.
Perhaps most importantly, video conferencing can reduce the risk of conflict in the workplace. In 2012, a study conducted at the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign took a closer look at how conflict resolution played out with text-, audio- and video-based solutions. The study found that “participants who used the video-based communication method were more likely to agree on solutions that were equally good to both parties, especially in difficult and high conflict [situations].”
This might strike you as counterintuitive. Email appears to allow us to choose our words carefully, thereby avoiding conflict, but it turns out that people using text-based communication methods often pack their messages with an overabundance of information, while video users process a single issue at a time. So while text-based solutions might give one the illusion of a polite exchange, in reality we are too often tossing huge globs of text at each other without really connecting.
Other studies have found that e-mail exchanges can escalate into conflict more quickly than face-to-face meetings, because it’s much easier to write something horrible or insensitive than it is to say something rude directly to a colleague’s face. You can see this kind of thing play out every minute on Facebook or Twitter: people are willing to say anything to win an argument in a text-based exchange, as if consequences vanish once fingers start typing. It’s too easy to forget there is a fellow human on the other side of the screen. Video conferencing solves this problem by forcing people to look each other in the eye and acknowledge a shared humanity. Of course, no company will ever be a utopia of perfect working relationships, but keeping your workforce connected via video can definitely reduce the likelihood of tension among co-workers.
Explore our range of mobile video conferencing and collaboration solutions and contact us with any questions. We will have one of our experts get back to you as soon as possible.
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