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Although 85 percent of employees use video as part of their everyday lives, only 28 percent say their employers are proactively encouraging them to use video at work to communicate, according to a BlueJeans survey of 4,000 employees across the United States, UK, Germany and France.
The majority (72 percent) believe live video has the power to transform the way they communicate at work, and 69 percent believe that increased use of video conversations would help employee retention at all levels within the organization.
The video conferencing vendor’s survey found that only one in seven (14 percent) employers were considered good at providing communications tools at work that mirror what employees use at home.
Almost two-thirds (63 percent) said their employers could make better use of live video, pointing to culture, collaboration and training as examples. Additionally, 63 percent said younger employees now expect to use live video as a communications tool when they enter the workplace.
“The most surprising findings from the study were around the mass adoption of live video and the powerful benefits today’s workforce is seeing as a result of these technologies,” Lori Wright, chief marketing officer at BlueJeans, told eWEEK. “The modern workplace is evolving rapidly, and we’re seeing that businesses that are implementing modern communication strategies are reaping the rewards through improved employee retention, greater diversity and improved collaboration.”
Also according to the survey results, 51 percent of respondents would prefer to work for a company that embraces live video as a way to communicate and 73 percent believe hiring of new staff could be transformed with video, changing relationships between employers and candidates as well as between bosses and employees at a cultural level.
Seeing people rather than just hearing them is considered a key benefit of video communication (60 percent), and 68 percent of respondents said they see live video saving time otherwise spent in face-to-face meetings in the next five years, while more than half (54 percent) see it significantly reducing the volume of email traffic.
Specific to America, almost 80 percent of U.S. employees find collaboration and sharing to be one of the most important ingredients to a successful company.
Moreover, more than a third of respondents view the shared experience video conferencing provides as one of the top benefits—a viewpoint not echoed by the UK and Germany, which see the biggest benefit as not having to travel as often.
When asked about the best use for live video in the United States, training was cited as the most popular (42 percent; respondents in France, meanwhile, said troubleshooting customer issues (31 percent) was their favorite way to use video.