Partner Article

Improving engagement in the corporate environment

It’s no secret that today, in both our personal and professional lives, time is a luxury. As older workers adapt to new technology and ways of communicating, and younger workers become labelled ‘Generation Overwhelmed’, it’s more critical than ever that time spent in meetings is efficient and productive. In classrooms and boardrooms alike, the days of presenters standing at the front of the room forcing everyone to pay attention are dwindling. This is due to new information available about how people learn and work in many different ways, and to advances in technology. Regarding the latter, thanks to mobile devices, people expect to be able to connect with presentations remotely. They want to interact more with content- asking questions, sharing feedback and recording notes for themselves. In short, collaboration- though something of a buzzword- is what people are coming to expect in the workplace in and out of meetings.

Employers, if they’re not already, need to quickly incorporate technology that allows for more interactivity during presentations to increase the likelihood that staff will absorb key messages quickly and efficiently, reducing meeting times and allowing more time for action. At DisplayNote, our technology encourages interaction between the presenter and the audience. For example, in developing a new app, we are all able to take individual screenshots on our devices of the interface, mark them up with our own feedback and share them back instantly with the group. Thanks to our work in this space, we have a few tips and tricks for employers to more easily engage employees during presentations:

• Don’t immediately shun the use of mobile devices during meetings and assume people aren’t paying attention- using connectivity and streaming technology turns smartphones or tablets into learning tools
• Don’t assume that everyone absorbs information the same way- some people like to take notes, others learn by doing. Take this into account by offering multiple ways for presentation information to be shared
• Use mobile technology to get a better handle on your audience by streaming a quick poll- how much do they already know? Where would they like you to focus your attention?
• Keep in mind that some people are shy about speaking up with questions- enabling mobile technology so that people can ask private questions allows you to address issues that others might also be thinking about

As a first step, enterprise management needs to be open to the fact that where and how people learn has changed dramatically over the past several years. Employees won’t adapt back to old methods, but will rather drive their organizations to match how they like to work. The more that organisations can get ahead of this, the more connected their staff will feel.

-Paul Brown is CEO of DisplayNote Technologies

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by DisplayNote .