Jabra Behavioural Study

Technology and its effect on meetings

Jabra recently conducted a study at the Behavioural Lab of LSE ( London School of Economics ) to measure the way in which the deployed technology affects those participating in business meetings in situ and remote.

LSE was the perfect choice for just such a study as they have a world class laboratory which has been designed to study human behaviour in a controlled environment, it regularly carries out research in the areas of human behaviour and wellbeing.

Jabra, formerly GN-Netcom have a long legacy in the design and manufacture of headsets, speakerphones and conferencing equipment for business and, hence, have every incentive to better understand both their customers and the way in which they interact with technology.

How much is the technology we’re using impacting our behaviour in meetings and our ability to collaborate effectively?

The reason for the investigation was that, over the past few years, workers are spending three times as much time in meetings. Obviously, as a meeting is all about the sharing of data, any lack of efficiency will affect that and will lead to wasted time and money.

WHAT WAS LEARNT FROM THE STUDY

PRESENT/ REMOTE PARTICIPATION

Many companies have actively encouraged ( or demanded ) that employees used to remote working post COVID, return to the office. This was predominantly based on the assumption that face to face communications enhanced engagement and led to greater efficiency.

The study found that in room users rated their interactions as far more productive than those of remote participants with figures of 56% higher engagement, 11% better expressiveness, 8% higher quality input, 16% more trust and 30% better ‘clarity of interaction’.

The best outcomes for viewing remote users were achieved when remote users were collaborating with a Jabra Evolve2 85 and PanaCast 20, or where both groups were using high-quality professional equipment.

EQUIPMENT IN USE

Although it should be clear to anyone that good audio and video are crucial for those in a meeting, it was found that only 29% of workers had been supplied a professional headset. Similarly less than 20% of workers used a dedicated webcam, relying instead on a laptop’s integral webcam which are vastly inferior.

In the initial stages of the study it was shown that remote workers were less well perceived by their locally participating counterparts. However, once supplied with top quality equipment ( in this instance a Jabra Evolve2 85 and a PanaCast 20 ) their perceived level of engagement was doubled. Similarly the actual remote user felt far more engaged themselves and considered the meeting experience ( enhanced by Jabra’s Dynamic Composition ) all the richer. Being able to clearly see the faces of all those in the meeting allowed a greater feelings of both comprehension and empathy which was reported to result in better results and more positive interactions.

The study also suggested that mixed technology caused raised levels of stress and fatigue for remote participants, whilst the cognitive load was minimised by the deployment of ‘same level’ professional technology.

VIEW ALL JABRA

TRUST

As in all areas of life, in business trust is a highly important component of communications. Jabra’s study supported the theory that the use of high quality technology increases the trust shown towards the work from home employee. Further, by monitoring remote workers’ blink rates ( in a process called endogenous eye-blink and gaze-pattern analysis ) it was suggested that hybrid workers are far more likely to display signs of fatigue

Trust in virtual and remote environments has been the subject of much discussion. Most would argue it is at the absolute core of the return to office debate. Microsoft call it productivity paranoia, where 85% of leaders say the shift to hybrid has made it challenging to have confidence that employees are being productive and struggle to trust their employees to do their best work. At the same time, 73% of employees say they need a better reason to go into the office than just company expectations.

IN CONCLUSION

The Jabra/ LSE study really highlighted the link between the implementation of technology in meetings and participant satisfaction and efficiency – it is clear that bringing people together face to face is the ultimate way in which to increase engagement whilst optimal deployment of technology can blur the line between remote and in house, bringing all parties together in a richer environment.

Potentially, in the future, with the rapid rise of both VR and AI, the location of the participant will cease to be distinguishable.

READ THE ENTIRE STUDY
I think the advantage of the technology that is now emerging is that it seems to provide an equal footing for all members of the meeting. When we think about mental wellbeing, a lot of what we value is that connectedness to other people. Any technology that helps close that gap in a remote environment has to be beneficial. I think what becomes interesting is whether it is something that is immediate, so in the context of our research, it might not be within the snapshot, but it becomes more salient as you look at the quality of that interaction over time. If you’re having to work less hard to read people’s faces and process information, that potentially reduces stress and the overheads that are involved with processing visual information.
Dr Noyce

London School of Economics