Remote
Collaboration Tools & Kleenex: Doctor's Orders for Productive Sick Days
Published 11/9/2012
David Danto
Principal
Consultant - AV / Multimedia / Video / UC,
Dimension
Data
Director
of Emerging Technology, IMCCA
Ugh, I have
a cold. I'm not on my death bed with a serious illness. The consequences are
not dire. It's just a cold. But still, ugh. My head hurts, my sinuses are
clogged, I have a non-stop drippy nose -- you get the picture -- it's the whole
package.
If I
was a kid in school I'd ask my parents to let me stay home and spend the day in
bed. Unfortunately, as adults with careers, clients, and responsibilities, we
often don't have taking a day off as an available choice. There isn't a teacher
that can postpone our deadlines or deliverables. But that's where today's
collaboration tools come into play.
In
today's fast-paced world, people typically feel they have no choice but to go
to work sick. This, of course, makes for a miserable day for everyone. The
person with the cold drags through the day, probably sharing the illness with co-workers,
fellow commuters, and anyone unlucky enough to touch things after him or her.
The illness not only reduces productivity for the person suffering through it,
but it has a domino effect on the workplace as others get exposed to someone
who "should have stayed in bed."
My cold
has helped remind me that my collaboration tools can perform a valuable service
in this case. When I work from my home office, I am able to avoid a number of
the problems above. I can skip the commute, which is no fun when you're sick. I
can keep the germs to myself, not exposing the rest of the workforce to my
symptoms. Most importantly for me, I can rest and recover (or stay in bed) at
the times that I do not have appointments, and just go to my desk at home for
the few times I need to.
Now,
before someone comments about how they don't want to be on video when they are
under the weather, let me point out how much easier it is to just look
presentable for a brief period on a video screen than it is to try and get
yourself together for a day in the office. For this and other video
circumstances, it's important to remember that our co-workers already know what
we look like.
Appearing
a little less put together on a day when we're not feeling well will clearly be
perceived as dedication to the team -- not as a poor reflection of one's lack
of neatness. And believe me, your co-workers will be
forever grateful that you chose not to share your germs, as will your
management, who will be much happier to have lost some of your productivity for
one day instead of suffering a widespread wave of absences.
You may
recall that in 2003, there was a great deal of concern about a SARS pandemic.
We were frightened that a widespread virus would affect a huge number of
people, decimating workforces and bringing business to a grinding halt.
Remote
collaboration tools, including videoconferencing, were put forward as a
potential response and solution, but at the time, the technology was neither mature
enough nor widely available. That is not the case today. Today, people have
access to very mature and effective collaboration tools. Working remotely is
accepted as a "mainstream" activity by many more organizations.
Working from home to prevent the spread of illness is now judged to be a good
decision.
So, if
it's all the same to you guys, I'm going back to bed. I think I can get in a
decent two hour nap before my next meeting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This blog was written by David Danto and contains solely his own,
personal opinions. It originally was published at UBM’s “The Video Enterprise”
website that was closed down November 2012. Here is a link to the Google cache of the
page with comments. I do not know how long Google keeps these pages.
David has over 30 years of experience providing problem solving leadership
and innovation in media and unified communications technologies for various
firms in the corporate, broadcasting and academic worlds including AT&T,
Bloomberg LP, FNN, Morgan Stanley, NYU, Lehman Brothers and JP Morgan Chase. He
recently joined Dimension Data as their Principal
Consultant for the collaboration, multimedia, video and AV disciplines. He is
also the IMCCA’s Director of Emerging Technology. David can be reached
at David.Danto@Dimensiondata.com or DDanto@imcca.org, he can be followed on
Twitter @NJDavidD , and his full bio and other blogs and articles can be seen at Danto.info.