When communicating ideas and collaborating with other people, the fundamental element we all need is audio.
That may sound like an obvious thing to say. But with the proliferation of video conferencing platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Zoom, WebEx, and Google Meet, the emphasis has been heavily weighted towards seeing participants rather than hearing them.
This is a trend that predates the pandemic, but now that employees are increasingly splitting their time between the office and remote settings, achieving the best audio quality during video calls becomes more important.
According to Tamara Prabhakar, Product Development Analyst at Immersitech, although businesses are moving back towards face-to-face interactions, there will still be a place for these virtual communications, therefore businesses should still be focused on improving audio quality.
“The hybrid model is becoming an increasingly popular way of working as companies and employees are finding a balance based on the benefits of a flexible schedule. While I believe that asynchrony will lead to more written task-based communication, for example, I work 100% remotely and this system works well for our team. Audio and video will continue to be prolific, connecting people across different times and spaces.”
Harsh Critics
Now that everyone has adapted to virtual meetings and the “you’re on mute” interactions have largely gone away, the attention has focused on how to get the most out of the collaboration platforms that are being used.
In the last year, the topic of employee fatigue has been an issue businesses are keen to tackle. One such example is background noise elimination, said Prabhakar, who added that the addition of spatial audio would also improve employee experiences.
“I feel like we’ve become harsher critics of existing platforms and will look for ways to improve the quality of our audio and video.
We already saw a lot of this with emphasis on background noise cancellation and the use of better equipment sets like microphones and headphones. Another change I could see is the need for more dynamic virtual spaces that mirror common workplace communication scenarios, such as Slack’s Huddles.”
