Over 28 million vaccine doses have been administered in South Africa, which means more employees will be back at work in 2022. Even so, this transition isn’t without its fair share of challenges, especially when trying to maintain high productivity levels and engagement in meetings between in-office and remote employees.

Meetings are at the heart of any collaborative culture and structure. Yet studies have found that companies waste over US$37-billion/year on unproductive meetings and that executives consider over 67% of meetings failures.

Unproductive meetings are often due to remote participants not engaging effectively with their colleagues in the office. That’s because virtual meetings, video and audio only, can prohibit employees from picking up on body language (or digital body language), which accounts for 55% of personal communication.

“Interpreting body language plays a crucial role in communication, especially in business meetings. It helps professionals forge stronger working relationships and communicate business objectives more accurately,” says Loubna Imenchal, head of Logitech for enterprise business AMECA at Logitech Africa. “In a hybrid or remote environment, employees’ ability to interpret body language is hindered by low-grade video-conferencing cameras, poor lighting or getting lost in the clutter of a crowded boardroom.”

Why employees need to watch their digital body language

While potentially invisible at first glance, digital body language comprises nonverbal cues conveyed through e-mails, instant messaging conversations and even through video conferencing. Taking note of these cues gives insight into employees’ attitudes, intentions and expectations.

Unlike physical body language, digital body language is more challenging to grasp and interpret because of several factors, including poor VC lighting that hides expressions and gestures and low-quality sound that doesn’t convey tone, all of which can lead to misunderstandings.

Business leaders can help employees never miss a cue. VC products like Logitech’s premium Ultra-HD Rally ConferenceCam system feature the proactive RightSense technology (RightSight, RightLight and RightSound), which helps make video-conference meetings more productive and personal, and easy for participants to stay engaged. It helps participants, whether they are in the meeting room or remote, see and hear each other better, allowing employees to interpret body language more easily.

Everyone in every seat at the table is in perfect focus thanks to the RightSight camera technology, which automatically moves the lens and adjusts the zoom, so no one gets left out of the picture. Because all meeting participants are always in view and optimally pictured on-screen, RightSight makes eye contact and conversations as effortless and natural as sitting together in the same room.

By reducing video noise, enhancing light balance, and fine-tuning colours and saturation for natural results across all skin tones, RightLight makes participants look clear and professional. It ensures faces aren’t cast into shadows, creating uniform lighting regardless of changing conditions.

Using RightSound, meeting participants can hear each other more clearly with less unwanted noise (like fans and keyboard clicks). Most importantly, the focus is always on the active speaker, amplifying both voice and tone with extraordinary clarity. An advanced speech detector algorithm even auto-boosts the volume of quiet talkers in the room.

Best of all, this technology is built right into Logitech webcams, conference cameras and audio solutions, and works automatically with most video-conferencing platforms, including Google Meet, Microsoft Teams and Zoom.

Click here to find out more about RightSense.