Like it or not, so much has changed since COVID-19 entered the picture. Life, it seems, has gone on a standstill as kids are forced to continue their studies online and working parents, well, have had to stay at home, too. 

In the age of COVID-19 and social distancing, most businesses quickly transitioned to work from home (WFH) mode — but that’s not to say it has all been easy and smooth sailing. With social distancing guidelines set by the Australian Government Department of Health, companies have had to adapt quickly to remote workplace 

Social distancing in the workplace 

To properly observe and maintain social distancing in the workplace, the Department of Health lists the following measures everyone must adhere to when at their workplace: 

• Avoid shaking hands or touching to greet others. 
• Non-essential meetings must be cancelled, and important meetings need to be conducted via video conferencing or telephone calls. 
• Meetings where many people must congregate must be postponed indefinitely. 
• Essential in-person meetings must be held out in the open whenever possible. 
• Practise hand, sneeze and cough hygiene at all times. Employees who are sick must stay at home and isolate themselves. 
• Companies should provide staff with alcohol-based hand rub for disinfection. 
• Employees should eat their lunch at their desks or outside in the open, not in the lunchroom. 
• Work area surfaces should be regularly cleaned and disinfected. 
• Windows need to be opened and air conditioning adjusted to permit natural ventilation or for more air to enter.
• Food handling must be limited in the workplace, as well as the sharing of food. 
• All non-essential travel must be avoided. 
• Food preparation by canteen staff and all close contacts must be done under the strict hygiene conditions. 

While some employers may have begun to seriously entertain the thought of going back to business as usual, others are not taking a chance even as Australian COVID-19 statistics have been on a steady decline. In the absence of a vaccine and with the currently dire circumstances in various countries, it’s easy to understand why working and meeting from home are still the new normal. 

Of course, all online communication, including conducting meetings from home, come with a few challenges. To help you with this concern, there are best practices you can implement to make video conferencing work for you. 

Effective video conferencing 

Conference video calls are a great alternative to personal meetings when the latter is not possible. To ensure your video conferences are effectively run, take note of the following: 

1. Check your internet connection 

Conducting a meeting online requires stable internet connectivity, so that everyone’s audio and video remain fairly consistent in terms of quality. You also need a secure connection with advanced encryption and password protection if you are using a wireless connection. 

2. Use a good quality video conferencing software 

There are several types of free video conferencing software to choose from, which meeting attendees can simply download or use through their browser. As the host, you’ll need to provide the necessary login details to ensure their access. 

3. Dress for the meeting 

Dressing right is a basic requirement in corporate presentations. Just because you’re conducting or attending a meeting from home doesn’t mean you should be attending it in your jammies. So, ensure you’re wearing work-appropriate attire that’s not too loud or colourful. This is especially important if you’re attending a meeting with a client or your suppliers. 

4. Pick a good time 

If the meeting attendees are located in different time zones, it’s best to choose a mutually acceptable schedule using the correct time zone. 

5. Eliminate all distractions 

As much as possible, set yourself against a plain background without any clutter. Get rid of all distractions including your cell phone which should be set to silent mode. If you have a house full of kids and pets, ensure there’s someone overseeing them, so interruptions are avoided during the meeting. You should also make sure you have good lighting that doesn’t hide or distort your face, so test the video feature prior to the meeting. 

6. Come prepared 

Preparation is key whether you’re conducting a regular in-person meeting or any other type of meeting. At least a day before the meeting, all meeting attendees should already have a copy of the agenda and all other files that need to be shared. This ensures everyone is ready for the discussion and anyone who needs to present specific data can come prepared. 

7. Introduce yourselves 

As the meeting host, the job of having everyone else introduce themselves falls on you, especially if there are new people attending the meeting. First you need to announce yourself and have each attendee introduce themselves one by one. 

8. Take turns speaking 

Use a simple meeting programme so that people don’t start talking at the same time. Let the attendees know ahead of time that there’ll be time for questions and comments. This is part of corporate communications decorum, as it helps ensure meetings are conducted in an orderly manner. 

9. Take down notes 

You or a designated party can take care of writing down important items, questions, issues and all other points raised in the meeting. You can even get everyone’s permission to record the session for easy reference. 

10. Use the mute feature 

Sounds that shouldn’t be there can be extremely distracting, so ask everyone to keep their microphones on mute when they are not speaking. 

11. Make sure everyone is on the same page 

Before moving on to another topic, make sure all attendees are in agreement or on the same page. Anything contentious may be set for later or scheduled for a future meeting dedicated to it. 

12. Stay on track 

Show how you value everyone’s time by making sure the meeting stays on track, moves along as scheduled and covers the set agenda. 

13. Review and summarise 

Near the end of the meeting, review all action items and key insights from the meeting. Inform the attendees of the next steps and email your meeting notes to everyone soon after the meeting is over. 

Video conferencing is currently in vogue as businesses continue to take the necessary precautions to protect the health of their employees whilst ensuring business continuity. 

If you feel your corporate presentation skills are inadequate, it would help for you to study and master effective presentation skills. By taking these types of courses, you’ll be more at ease with conducting meetings or making presentations — whether online or in person. You can also have your employees register for such courses as part of their personnel development programmes. 

Screenwise offers customised corporate training solutions delivered via video conferencing, so you and your staff can make good use of this time to learn something new and useful for your business. 

The COVID-19 virus has undercut and overwhelmed the global economy. Most businesses — from Fortune 500 corporations to sole proprietorships — will face severe strains from the global impact of the virus. 

Impacts from the disease will change, in both the short and long terms, the way many organisations operate. Administration, marketing, production and training may follow significantly different best practices. 

Our team has worked to develop an effective set of corporate training solutions that incorporate lessons learned from the impact of the pandemic. These empower those seeking to make more powerful presentations that achieve desired results. 

We take lessons from the realm of stage and screen to help you elevate your skills and gain more confidence in material and delivery alike. 

The Need for a New Online Corporate Training Paradigm 

Even during a pandemic — and perhaps because of it — businesses need to continue to invest in training and skills development across the board. 

Lockdowns give businesses incredible opportunities to boost the training and skills of employees both on the job and at home. 

With millions of people on lockdown, but still connected to the internet, organisations have a tremendous opportunity to obtain top quality training for employees. They can learn from home and prepare to be as productive as possible when they return to their jobs. 

How Online Communication Will Play a Larger Role 

The digital age has already seen tremendous changes in how people train for employment and do their jobs. Online connections enable more to do work and experience more training remotely than ever before. 

Even in states that have passed laws restricting use of independent contractors and labour, we should see a continual expansion of remote work. Learning how to communicate and make special presentations through online platforms have already become normal. What we expect to see, especially with the emergence of 5G, is expanded capabilities for remote collaboration. 

This dynamic requires that individuals boost their online communication skills. Our team will make sure that courses and other materials remain relevant to this quickly changing global situation. 

What Screenwise Can Do for Your Company 

Whilst we effectively trained hundreds of performers, we also discovered that those in other professions could use the same skill sets that are adopted in the profession of acting. Screenwise has earned a reputation as one of Australia’s most respected schools for performance training in the arts. 

Many of the same traits, however, of great actors and actresses also elevate those successful in business and other fields. Acting skills repackaged for business purposes can help your public speaking and presentation in the business world reach its full potential. For example, acting techniques can help those in other fields learn the importance of body language while presenting individually or in groups. 

For that reason, we have created courses designed to teach performance in the world of business. 

Skills Taught By Our Team 

We take the same techniques that have elevated countless actors and actresses into stars and apply them to business communications. To create the best possible impact, we offer a variety of formats through which our  clients can learn and try new communications skills. These include: 

Presentation training in smaller, more informal and confidence-boosting environments, allowing for more one-on-one tutoring and work 

Training on how to speak and to look your best on camera. Image and perception are almost as important as knowledge, organisation and delivery in many cases. 

Your team will deliver business presentations, interact with others in meetings and communicate overall with more proficiency, ability and confidence. 

Stages of Corporate Development Training 

Great training programs start with structures put in place before they begin. We follow three stages each time to create the most effective courses possible. 

Communications often begin with introductions and building rapport. We ask questions about your organisation to determine the right approach for our programs. 

Second, we evaluate the opportunities, challenges and environment of your business. This helps us to create a “right fit” program that will best benefit your organisation and those who work there. 

Finally, we create customised educational experiences — according to size, length, material, and needs — for your team. We also design them to suit a variety of presentation formats, including online. 

Jobs That Could Benefit From Presentation Training 

A surprising  number of jobs  can benefit from our slate of communications courses. Communication serves as a foundation skill in almost any business environment. Better communication means improved production and efficiency, as well as fewer errors. 

Some of those jobs include, but are not limited to: 

• Community liaisons 
• Human resources 
• Sales and marketing 
• Client and customer service managers and workers 
• CEOs, CFOs, CIOs, COOs 
• Government relations 
• Managers and supervisors 
• Lawyers and paralegals 

This list remains far from conclusive, but gives an idea of the breadth of positions that will benefit from our precision-developed and proven successful corporate communications education program. 

Reach Out Today 

Check out our slate of exciting and informative corporate communications courses from the performance experts at Screenwise. We take skills mastered by some of Australia’s most famous actors and actresses, then put them to work to train your staff. Enjoy a work environment made smoother by more effective communications. 

Learn more about all of our programs by calling, emailing, or sending a message. We look forward to receiving your inquiries and will respond as quickly as possible.

The COVID-19 pandemic is by far the most life-altering global crisis to ever hit the world in the 21st century. With no vaccine in immediate sight, organisations have come to realise the possibilities that come with online communication — easily the safest way to ensure business continuity (up to a certain point) whilst adhering to social distancing guidelines. 

These social distancing requirements placed global economies on a standstill, up until businesses scrambled to adapt to the crisis and establish work- and meet-from-home practices.  As a result, almost everyone has probably gone on at least one Zoom meeting or  video conference.  New remote workers have also begun to learn the ropes of effectively working from home.  

Conducting remote workplace meetings, however, poses some unique challenges and limitations, which we discuss below. Hopefully, by knowing these things, you can adopt industry best practices to help ensure every video conference you run achieves the objectives you set. 

1. You cannot recreate real live communication. 

Here, you can probably say that there is an inherent disconnect between meeting attendees. This is especially true for teleconferencing where additional challenges are present: you may not recognise who is speaking even after introducing yourselves, and there are no visual cues to help with communication. 

With video conferencing, participants get to see each other; however, body language is largely absent as all of you will be sitting somewhere with usually just your face framed in the camera. Remember, 55 per cent  of our understanding of non-verbal communication comes from body language. So, in its absence, we’re largely incapable of recreating personal communication. 

To somehow offset these drawbacks, we advise you to look straight into the camera and occasionally utilise hand gestures that can indicate excitement and interest, as well as for emphasis. These skills can easily be improved upon in a corporate presentation skills workshop where you get to learn about verbal and non-verbal cues that help make communication effective and impactful. 

2. Time lag and network problems can crop up. 

Even if all participants have the most stable internet connection  in the world, there are times when high network traffic (and a host of other network issues) can affect video and audio quality during a video conference. In fact, you may even experience time lags and get poor audio and blurry video.  

What you can do to address this is to set the rules of your video conference early on, such as ensuring only one person talks at a time and following the meeting agenda. Try to entertain comments and questions at a later stage. These are simple elements of corporate communications decorum that’ll help ensure your communication goals are met. 

3. Staff may have inadequate training and encounter technical issues. 

If you’re already tech-savvy, you may have no issues with transitioning from the office to a work-from-home (WFH) setup. You may also have no issues leading or participating in remote meetings. However, others may require training and need assistance in acquiring the equipment necessary to facilitate these types of communication. So, prior to adopting the new normal in your organisation, you need to allocate time, money, and resources for training your employees. 

Once training is done, you also need to give your staff time to adjust and get used to the new technology and software or platform you are using. 

You also need to ensure that equipment capable of facilitating seamless online communication are available to your employees. In case they encounter technical issues, they should be able to contact the designated tech support of the platform you are using.

4. Employees may experience added stress. 

Remote workers who have embraced the WFH setup usually identify one downside: the ability to contact an employee or co-worker anytime and anywhere. While this may be viewed as helpful in a collaborative sense, it can also be bothersome and stressful. 

This is why it’s essential to set clear parameters in terms of when remote workplace meetings are necessary and when employees can be contacted. If all you need are updates on a task, a simple chat message should be sufficient. 

Managers also need to instill in employees the need to treat remote meetings such as teleconferences and video discussions seriously. By ensuring meeting attendees always come prepared, you prevent wasting time.

What you can do to improve workplace communications during this time 

As a business owner, it falls on you to set standards and implement processes to keep your team communication effective and efficient. Aside from our suggestions mentioned above, you can work on improving workplace communication by tapping into available corporate training solutions. 

Screenwise offers corporate training classes that encompass all aspects of corporate communication, whether in person or through a video conference. Our corporate classes are suitable for everyone that plays an active communication role in your company. These include: 

• CEOs 
• Change managers 
• Corporate communicators 
• Directors 
• HR professionals 
• Internal communicators 
• Legal professionals 
• Marketers 
• Organisational development managers 
• Project managers 
• Real estate agents 
• Sales and recruitment managers 
• Start-up entrepreneurs 
• Team managers 

Better yet, you can include these corporate courses into your training and development programme. By registering your people into these training sessions, which can also be conducted via video conference, you’ll be making good use of the “extra” time you have as you and your people continue working from home. Doing so will benefit not only your employees but your business as well in the long term.