It’s safe to say that now that coronavirus changed everything that work will never be the same again. Instead of boardrooms, we have Zoom calls, instead of cubicles we sit on living room couches and commutes have gotten significantly shorter.

When the pandemic hit, companies and government agencies were scrambling to figure out exactly how to run business as usual from home. Poly was one of the companies that helped fit the puzzle pieces together.

Poly, a joining of Plantronics and Polycom, helps the government and agencies bring office quality solutions to people’s homes. In March, it was hit with a tidal wave of demand. Now the company is helping telework become part of the norm.

“Right now we’re in a big discovery mode, there’s a big learning going on across the industry across the world,” said Ed Roman, U.S. Federal SE Manager at Poly, during the discussion “Enhancing the Work From Home Experience for Federal Employees,” sponsored by Poly. “Government and businesses are learning to understand productivity, understand the benefit of working from home, also the cost savings and work/life balance as well.”

Roman said a lot of people are starting to understand the value of working from home. But, to make working from home viable, it needs to be comfortable and effective.

We’re all familiar with virtual meeting fatigue: tense muscles from sitting in the same spot, distracting noises, echoes and barking dogs. Poly is trying to cut down on distractions and let government employees do their jobs.

“Agencies are finding they need to make sure their employees have the PCs, the peripherals like headsets, audio and video devices to be able to handle this increased demand,” said Joe McGreal, U.S. federal business channel manager at Poly. “The good news is productivity is running at all-time high with a lot of agencies, because folks are able to meet virtually more often with the removal of drive time and scheduling, conference rooms, etc. The bad news is these online meetings can really start to fatigue the end user.”

Poly offers some solutions to try to break down that frayed feeling from too many video calls.

“With this new world order in pandemic and increase of teleworkers, you have children in the background, you have the doorbell ringing, you have the lawnmower, landscaping, you have all these things that happen that increased the noise floor,” Roman said. “Our headsets have the ability to filter out those noises and keep the continuity of the meeting. Fluidity is really important because at the end of the day, what you want to do is you want to accomplish the same thing as a face to face meeting and you want to make sure that the technology remains as transparent as possible.”

Poly’s technology also helps with the visual side. The cameras follow eyes to maintain eye contact and trace the user so they can move around without distraction.

The company’s goal is to have those tools move back and forth between the office and home.

“If I’m going to spend six, seven hours a day going from meeting to meeting to meeting, I don’t want to be retooling and rebooting and restarting, depending on which meeting I’m going to,” McGreal said. “We’ve always been location agnostic, we really look at what’s out there and how can we best support it so that your experience in any of these meetings is of excellent quality. It’s also ease of use for you and something that you take the same environment and drop it back in an office environment and still have the same tools available to you for those meetings.”

How Poly Helps Collaboration

Agencies are finding they need to make sure their employees have the PCs, the peripherals like headsets, audio and video devices to be able to handle this increased demand. The good news is productivity is running at all-time high with a lot of agencies, because folks are able to meet virtually more often with the removal of drive time and scheduling, conference rooms, etc. The bad news is these online meetings can really start to fatigue the end user.

Joe McGreal

Federal Channel Business Manager, Poly

Virtual Collaboration Tools

With this new world order in pandemic and increase of teleworkers, you have children in the background, you have the doorbell ringing, you have the lawnmower, landscaping, you have all these things that happen that increased the noise floor. Our headsets have the ability to filter out those noises and keep the continuity of the meeting.

Ed Roman

U.S. Federal SE Manager, Poly

Virtual Collaboration Best Practices

We've always been location agnostic, we really look at what's out there and how can we best support it so that your experience in any of these meetings is of excellent quality.

Joe McGreal

Federal Channel Business Manager, Poly

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