It’s been almost a year since the pandemic that rocked the world disrupted our daily routine and life as we knew it. In the past twelve months, we’ve learned how to adapt and move forward in this environment that requires flexibility in the workplace. Zoom has become a staple in any office, workspace, and even in the educational sector. The ability to hold virtual meetings has allowed the opportunity for face-to-face interactions that can be missing with traditional phone calls. Zoom has recognized this requirement for providing a personal aspect to working from home and has begun to rollout new features to help offices continue to work remotely and efficiently. Here are a few of the options provided by Zoom to maintain a free-flowing environment for employees, clients, and students.
Virtual Receptionist
Having a friendly face greet visitors is a nice touch in any office, and thankfully Zoom has figured out a way to offer this while still allowing for social distancing. A tablet can be placed in the physical office, where the visitor can walk up to the screen and interact with the virtual receptionist. The receptionist can guide the visitor through a temperature check, health and safety protocols for the office, or seat them while he/she alerts someone on the team of the visitor’s presence.
Monitoring Room Capacity
A Norwegian company, Neat, created software that can be used with a videoconferencing screen to monitor how many people are in a single room at the same time. This is important for managers and employees to know if the meeting spaces are too crowded and potentially violating local Covid capacity laws. The software is able to detect the outlines of the individuals in the room and provide a count, which is shown on the Zoom dashboard to provide transparency.
Screensharing
The ability to share a screen, or even allow access to another Zoomer to take over, is crucial to keeping everyone on the same page. This feature is important in one-on-one or group meetings as it keeps all of the attendees on the same page with clear visuals. The “Share Screen” button is located in the meeting controls, along with options to annotate or use a whiteboard. This feature is available on iPhones or Androids, too – a laptop isn’t necessary.
Zoom continues to roll out more and more features and functions as the reliance on virtual meetings remains. Zoom has begun to offer closed captioning, as well as customizing your background to give yourself a fresh look in meetings. These useful and fun upgrades will likely be just the beginning, and we’re excited to see what’s offered next!