During these days of tight travel budgets, companies, more than ever, are depending on conference calls to keep in touch.
Alas, that approach has some serious drawbacks, since folks may not be listening.
The RoperASW/Tandberg poll looked at workers in the U.S., the U.K., Germany, Norway and Hong Kong, and found in all countries except America and Norway, less than half of workers pay full attention during audio conferences.
So what are they doing instead? Twenty-nine percent of British workers say they doodle, while 22 percent of Germans surf the web. Twenty percent of Americans say they have side conversations with someone else during conference calls.
It gets weirder: 22 percent of Hong Kong workers admit they weren’t fully dressed during their last teleconference, while 14 percent of them were doing their makeup or hair.
Finally, seven percent of Americans admit they’ve left a call early — the highest percentage out of all the countries surveyed.
So reach out and touch someone — but make sure they’re dressed, first.
(via BoingBoing)
Well, I can admit I’ve done conference calls when I am working from home in my PJs. I think I would feel weird being naked while on a phone call with virtual strangers but that is just me. I frequently multitask while on conference calls. If I didn’t I would never get any work done.
I think conference calls, well less personal than a face to face meeting, are a bit more personal than just email, or in the case of my work instant messaging. I would hate to think of trying to schedule work in between 5 -7 face to face meetings a day.
I have a terrible time trying to concentrate during phonecons, being more visual than audial. That’s one reason why I take minutes — it forces me to concentrate (and, even then, is not always successful).