Obstacles to adopt virtual meetings

Few days ago, we discussed the challenges and obstacles for users in company to not adopt a technology of virtual meetings over face-to-face meetings, once they get back to office (post of Covid_19).

Many departments/companies trying to save money (yes, technology cost too, but it already implemented), so my critical point was to "Establish a new culture between employees, and enforce it with an internal policy/rules". But, we dig deeper to cover all technical aspects and answer the Why/What questions on this topic, and i came up with list shared below with the logical and rationality behind it. And bare in mind, that we are "still" in this Covid_19 pandemic, and trying to adapt it in our daily life.

[Please, take in mind that this is not a scientific answers, simply putted here after an individual-brainstorm & reading some articles]

• Headset or mic and speaker.

[User may start to demand new headsets (or replace/repair old one) to join virtual meeting, which companies trying to avoid an extra cost]

• Common Computers (Multi-users).

[Users with common PCs, may start to request their own workstations or laptops, and that due to attend some private or scheduled meetings.]

• Work environment noisiness.

[Some work environment are quite noisy (depends), so users may attempts to escape that areas to attend any meetings (virtual or physical meetings)]

• Technology technical issues .

[Technical issues, could be one of the main challenges in this field, and that vary between connection issues, to camera/visual issues and including “lake of knowledge” that may lead to wasting 10 to 30 minutes or more (depends) of the meetings, trying to connect/configure IT peripherals on spot, and so on]

[Lack of Knowledge, user may know one way of “how to make things up”. And that include, but not limited to : > joining to Zoom/MS Teams/Slack meetings, through app or web. > Connecting laptop to larger screen, through wire cable/wireless/bluthooth/Remote Control. ]

• Language.

[Non-English native users, with poor English (but could be a high-profile specialist in their areas), may prefer to ask the mentor/peers during the meeting to translate, as much as possible]

• Non-verbal communication.

[“Body language and facial expression” is considered one valuable point for experts and executive level people, which could be limited when using virtual meetings. Specially, [this what i read] vendors and new projects people prefer at less first meetings cared with Face-to-Face meetings, for many aspects]

[Face-to-face meeting, may preferable also when it come to an interactions within meeting, like mentor/presenter to users interactions]

• Physiologically.

[On executives level, the easiness of virtual meetings and driven by technology, can increase the meetings number to a fatigue point, where in face-to-face meetings are more organized and require more time in-advance to arrange things]

[An alibi to “Take a break” from load of works/managers or any silly reasons, and that break could be a reason to leave for several hours and maybe days (depends where the face-to-face meetings held)]

[People may prefer face-to-face meeting, to build successful relationship with peers or meeting new/old attendees]

[Some users may want to speak up always in every meetings (personal branding), so face-to-face meeting is preferable here]

[Some users simply doesn’t want to adopt anything, to remain in their comfort zone forever]

An the end, what about you ? What are the reasons rational that my stop you (or other people) from adopting virtual meetings in your business field ? And what can we do about this, what the other innovative technology that would help to overcome, some of the mentioned challenges?

Thank you and be safe,

Hamdan Alyammahi