Video Conferencing with Live Meeting

Now that bonuses are off the cards, many employers are wondering how to improve staff retention without adding to the payroll burden. One fantastic way to help staff loyalty is to offer the opportunity for staff to work at home.

But if you’re relying on email and a phone line, communication can very quickly break down. It’s not surprising that home-working has taken longer to take off than anticipated: many colleagues view their home-working colleageus with suspicion, and bosses are often reluctant to free thier employees from office-bound desks.

Live Meeting provides an excellent solution, since it allows people to interact with office-based employees much more easily. Some of the ways Live Meeting can be specifically useful to home-workers include:

• Set up face-to-face meetings with a webcam
  

  Much better than relying on phone contact, Live Meeting provides a more robust means of communication. Use your webcam (supplied) and microphone to see the other person while you explain something, or while you present material.

• Share and collaborate on documents easily
  One of the problems traditionally associated with working in different locations has been the inability to collaborate effectively on documents. Live Meeting lets you share a programme or document easily, and make changes together in real time. At the end of your meeting, the document is saved in a central location, and when you re-open the virtual meeting room, your file is there waiting for you.
  
• Allow home workers to link-in to office meetings Live Meeting also provides the ability to link real-life meetings with off-site colleauges. Using Roundtable, a meeting can be set up which will provide a live video link of all participants. Anyone with a Live Meeting license can then join the meeting and participate. For more about Roundtable, please see this post.
• Outlook calendars integration
  

  Because Live Meeting ties into Microsoft Office so well, you can easily schedule meetings by using Outlook. If you’re using Outlook’s shared calendars features, it’s easy to set up Live Meetings when you know your colleagues will be free. As soon as you request a meeting, the invitation is sent via email and automatically put in the calendar if accepted. See this post for more about the Outlook integration.

Now that bonuses are off the cards, many employers are wondering how to improve staff retention without adding to the payroll burden. One fantastic way to help staff loyalty is to offer the opportunity for staff to work at home.

But if you’re relying on email and a phone line, communication can very quickly break down. It’s not surprising that home-working has taken longer to take off than anticipated: many colleagues view their home-working colleageus with suspicion, and bosses are often reluctant to free thier employees from office-bound desks.

Live Meeting provides an excellent solution, since it allows people to interact with office-based employees much more easily. Some of the ways Live Meeting can be specifically useful to home-workers include:

• Set up face-to-face meetings with a webcam
  

  Much better than relying on phone contact, Live Meeting provides a more robust means of communication. Use your webcam (supplied) and microphone to see the other person while you explain something, or while you present material.

• Share and collaborate on documents easily
  One of the problems traditionally associated with working in different locations has been the inability to collaborate effectively on documents. Live Meeting lets you share a programme or document easily, and make changes together in real time. At the end of your meeting, the document is saved in a central location, and when you re-open the virtual meeting room, your file is there waiting for you.
  
• Allow home workers to link-in to office meetings Live Meeting also provides the ability to link real-life meetings with off-site colleauges. Using Roundtable, a meeting can be set up which will provide a live video link of all participants. Anyone with a Live Meeting license can then join the meeting and participate. For more about Roundtable, please see this post.
• Outlook calendars integration
  

  Because Live Meeting ties into Microsoft Office so well, you can easily schedule meetings by using Outlook. If you’re using Outlook’s shared calendars features, it’s easy to set up Live Meetings when you know your colleagues will be free. As soon as you request a meeting, the invitation is sent via email and automatically put in the calendar if accepted. See this post for more about the Outlook integration.