When you first went remote, how did it feel? For many of us our first experience of WFH was only a matter of years ago, and to begin with I would bet you still felt very connected to your team. There was so much going on in the world after all. So much change we were going through together as a collective, the least of which was learning how to navigate Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

Fast forward to now, and let’s get really honest for a moment. On a scale from one to ten, how would you rate the bond and rapport you have with your teammates? Think broadly here, everything from how open you feel sharing some of your more left-field ideas, to the last time you had a belly laugh together. Think as well about any people who came on board post 2020, who perhaps you have never met in real life or spent any time with socially. How do those relationships impact your overall team spirit score? My hunch is you are looking at a score that’s middling at best. Now that the novelty of remote working has worn off, we’re left with the bare bones of the remote working experience. Sure, teams are still getting plenty done, but their time at work has lost a certain sparkle. Friends of mine responded by looking for new jobs, only to find the same sense of ‘meh’ in their new remote roles.

The task of re-igniting the passion typically falls to managers, who set the tone for others with their energy and approach. Something simple but powerful those in leadership positions can do is arm their teams with high performance video collaboration tech. Devices that simplify and squeeze every last drop out of remote communication, rather than exacerbate it as so many legacy systems do. 

Neat make devices that anyone can use intuitively – no training required – putting an end to those stressful video meeting set-ups that sap enthusiasm for a meeting before it has even started. Neat Board for example has just one cable to plug in, and when you walk into the room it ‘wakes up’ automatically so all you need to do is tap it to begin your meeting. 

For teammates joining meetings from home there’s Neat Frame, which is just as effortless to use and catches every little ‘mmmmm’ and ‘aha’ in the room so that people feel right there amidst the action. Neat Frame’s audio algorithms also remove background noise and prevent people talking over each other, so conversation flows more naturally, which makes a surprising difference to overall meeting satisfaction. When we think of high quality communication, we usually focus on the content of what is being said, when in reality less than 10% of the message we convey is transmitted through our words. How we say those words has a far greater impact’ our pitch, tone, modulation – even our pauses speak volumes. All Neat devices have been designed with this in mind and facilitate the highest fidelity speaking and listening experience. It’s one of the reasons Neat Frame won the title ‘Best Of The best’ and ‘Smart Product’ at this year’s Red Dot Design awards.

Of course the other thing that impacts how what we say lands is body language. To make sure more of it is seen, Neat devices auto-frame and follow peoples’ movements, including when they get up and walk around the room. Our devices also feature patented technology we call Symmetry, which makes sure even the people in the background of a meeting space are seen and heard, by giving them equal priority to the people positioned more directly in front of devices. This strong focus on capturing everyone and everything, all the gestures and microexpressions that inform a conversation, goes a really long way; returning vital clues as to what our teammates are really thinking about important topics, and breathing life and color back into our expression. 

I think that’s what really makes the difference when you’re part of a distributed team: how closely you can feel peoples’ energy, passion, unique personalities and idiosyncrasies. When the devices you use are built with this philosophy at their core, we restore the magic of partnering with others and bringing our whole selves to the working day.

Bring back the spark for your distributed team and browse Neat Experiences today.