All of us at Owl Labs have felt the pain and disadvantages of remote work, and we’re excited to fix this problem for remote workers everywhere. Our mission is to help companies truly enable remote work for their employees, which is essential as the remote work phenomenon grows over time.

For example, did you know ...

• 79% of knowledge workers (engineers, marketers, product managers) say they would like to work from home. (PGI)
• 68% of job-seeking millennials said the option to work remotely would greatly increase their interest in an employer. (Survey by AfterCollege)
• A study by Stanford discovered that allowing remote work reduces job attrition rates by over 50%. (Stanford)
  

Now is the time to acknowledge that remote work has evolved from being a luxury to an expectation. As Gallup noted earlier this year, the percentage of US workers working remotely in some capacity rose to 43% in 2016. We can attribute a lot of this growth to the technology advancements in the last 5+ years that have made remote work possible. Problem solved, right?

Not quite. 

The next stage is for companies to provide tools that support remote workers' success, so employees can have the same impact from home as they would from the office.

So what does supporting remote work mean? For many organizations, it means telling department heads that they shouldn’t give their employees a hard time if they want to work from home in the morning, or get out early to pick up their kids. For companies that are especially focused on creating a great corporate environment, it often means offering flexibility in a way that’s organic to the culture.

While this is a step in the right direction, “allowing” remote work is not enough.

Companies need to enable remote work so employees can have the same exact business impact when remote as they do when in-person.

Does Today’s Technology Support Remote Work?

Some technology has made progress in enabling remote work, such as Slack, Google Docs or Drive. Unfortunately, video conferencing has fallen short.

Before today, there have been two types of advancements in the video conferencing space, and neither has made true collaboration over video conferencing possible.

Web-based video conferencing services are solving for reliability and video quality, and they have made it easier to setup and hold video meetings. However, the experience those services provide is limited by the camera and audio equipment that’s supplying the feed.

Video conferencing hardware has been obsessed with improving camera quality and increasing the number of pixels. However as a remote person, seeing a one-dimensional view doesn’t mean you have the picture and experience you need to be able to collaborate.

Think about the typical above-the-TV camera that exists in so many conference rooms. Is that a view that actually drives interaction and supports the remote worker? Take a minute to think whether you’ve joined a team meeting from home and logged into a meeting using that type of view. I’d bet you felt like a fly on the wall, and it was extremely hard to contribute. Maybe you felt like you were there to watch the team’s discussion instead of participate yourself.

Technology is literally limiting you from having the business impact you want and should have, and companies need to fix that to enable remote team members to be equally effective.

It’s Time to Make Remote Collaboration Work

Remote employees deserve a video conferencing experience that’s truly collaborative and engaging, and we do that by giving the remote employee an experience that feels like face-to-face.

You get the same information and context cues as you would if you were sitting with the team, and that’s the remote standard we should all strive to provide.

Imagine what investing in technology that supports true video collaboration will do. Your employees will be happier because they can be successful at the office or at home. If your lead product person needs to move across the company because his wife got her dream job, he can stay with the company and still feel connected to the team. Your company will be able to boast that it enables true work flexibility, and you will have the technology to back it up.

We'd love for you to experience the Meeting Owl first hand, and encourage you to request a live demo to see it for yourself. We're proud of what we've created, and we’re excited to help remote workers everywhere. We hope you love the Meeting Owl as much as we do.