Strategies to Enable Safe Employee Collaboration in the Workplace with Mike Ehlenberger and Jay Taylor

You’ve heard it a thousand times — we’re living in unprecedented times. The COVID-19 pandemic has already changed how we work, live and play. Now, as companies prepare to safely transition employees back to the workplace, how can you implement technology to create lower-risk spaces?

To answer that question, host Shelby Skrhak sat down with Mike Ehlenberger and Jay Taylor for this episode of Collaborative Tech Talks, brought to you by ScreenBeam.

Like many companies trying to keep their employees safe, Silicon Valley-based ScreenBeam transitioned their entire workforce to work remotely when shelter-in-place orders went into effect several months ago.

Ehlenberger, ScreenBeam Vice President and General Manager, said the company found themselves better prepared technologically than most to employ a remote workforce, but not without challenges.

“I think we’re being pretty successful in our ability to work and communicate with each other,” Ehlenberger says, “In some areas, we’re finding great uses for tools such as Microsoft Teams that we hadn’t been using as much, but, in other places, I think we’re really lacking in creativity and innovation when you’re not face-to-face. It’s really a challenge.”

Taylor, Senior Director of Technical Marketing, agrees that in-person collaboration has an important, if not essential, role in fostering creativity and innovation.

“The reality is you can’t change human nature,” he says. “People are going to find a way to be face-to-face. So then, what can we do to facilitate employee safety that still allows collaboration?”

ScreenBeam has solutions for transitioning employees back to the workplace with contactless meeting spaces, digital signage for communicating company safety policies, and technology that enables socially-distanced stand-up meetings in an otherwise non-traditional meeting space.

For instance, the ScreenBeam 1100 Plus is the only app-free, cross-platform, 4K wireless presentation system that eliminates cables, adapters, remote controls, and switches.

“It eliminates the ‘rings of things,'” Ehlenberger said.

On this episode, Ehlenberger and Taylor share strategies for facilities, AV and IT teams to proactively plan for safe employee collaboration in the workplace.