| Video meetings could become a key business communications
tool as companies and
their staff aim to reduce their at-work driving risk exposure,
reports Ashley Martin |
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| “Key organisations need to
be on board with the concept of video conferencing as
a viable way of working” |
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Mounting legislation targeted at reducing occupational road risk,
coupled with terrorist threats to disrupt public transport, will
see video meetings become a key business communications tool. That
is the view of a range of organisations, including the Royal Society
for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), which have joined forces
to mount a new initiative called “Meeting without Moving”.
Historically, the benefits of video conferencing – or video
meetings, as today’s technology allows intimate, interactive
dialogue with no jerky pictures or time delays – have focused
on time-saving, reduced travel costs, improved quality of life,
environmental protection and business efficiency.
But supporters of the concept believe the promotion of video meetings
as a mechanism for businesses to reduce occupational road risk will
result in a fundamental change in an industry that, until recently,
has frequently touted its benefits from an IT perspective. There
are around 1,000 fatalities and more than 100,000 injuries a year
as a result of road accidents involving at-work drivers in the UK.
Add in the raft of existing and forthcoming legislation impacting
on companies, directors, line managers and drivers, and there is
an unanswerable case for business to utilise video meetings, with
video meetings positioned as an “employee and employer protector”.
The use of video conferencing is a mechanism for companies to
reduce their exposure to risk and therefore possible prosecution
in the event of a road accident involving one of their members of
staff, it is suggested. It also reduces staff exposure to risk,
stress and fatigue due to business travel. Roger Bibbings, occupational
safety adviser at RoSPA, has recently approached a number of organisations,
including the Institute of Directors, TUC, government departments
and technology providers in a bid to promote video conferencing.
He says: “The first task is to promote the benefits of video
conferencing to a range of key organisations. They need to be on
board with the concept as a viable way of working. Businesses and
other organisations then need to undertake a travel and communications
audit to see how much could be substituted by video conferencing.
It is a tremendous aid to business efficiency.”
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| “Video conferencing will
mean our staff don’t have to sit for hours on congested
roads” |
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It is calculated that the average single business trip costs more
than £2,000 and, on average, three employees travel to a single
meeting, driving staff costs up to £6,000 per trip on top
of hard costs for travel, food and entertainment. In addition, the
total amount of time actually spent in meetings on most trips is
often under two hours, or 30% of the time spent out of the office.
While many FTSE 100 companies have video conferencing facilities,
it is suggested that the facility is seldom used by anyone other
than directors. While first-time meetings and meetings to conclude
a deal need to be face-to-face, there are a high percentage of routine
day-to-day procedural meetings that can be carried out via video
link, it is suggested.
Although industry figures suggest that there are around 60,000
video meetings held each day in the UK, sharply-increased travel
problems on roads, railways and planes, the introduction of congestion
charges and growing concerns over terrorism and safety, many people
continue to travel unnecessarily because they are not aware of the
alternative. BT is Britain’s market leader in electronic conferencing
embracing three mediums – video, phone and internet. Mike
Berry, head of strategy and planning for BT Conferencing, says that
for every one video conference meeting, there are around 1,000 audio
conference calls made by telephone. He agrees that video conferencing
has typically been the preserve of company bosses as the technology
is typically located in a company’s boardroom.
However, Mr Berry says that BT “practices what it preaches”
and has equipped many of its offices nationwide with video conferencing
facilities. He himself is video-enabled from his Northamptonshire
home, which means he travels to his London office perhaps only once
a week. High quality video conferencing facilities cost £5,000-
£6,000, according to Mr Berry, while the price of audio conferencing
was significantly less as no specialist equipment was required –
just telephones.
“Anything that reduces the amount of road travel should
be looked at by businesses,” he says. “We can supply
and manage conferencing across the three technologies, which can
be mixed and matched for different applications by companies.”
Video conference supporters want HR departments and health and safety
managers to understand the benefits of video conferencing from a
duty of care and risk management perspective. “Video conferencing
is not a threat – it simply makes life easier and offers many
risk-free benefits,” says Mr Berry.
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What the experts say
Transport 2000 estimates that traffic levels will increase
17% over the decade to 2010, fuelling concerns over safety,
congestion, pollution and road building and strengthening
the case for an instant solution. Stephen Joseph, director
of the pressure group, says: “Business travel in the
UK puts thousands more cars on our already congested roads
and clocks up colossal air miles, just so people can sit in
the same room as each other.
“It contributes to the growing environmental and a
social problem associated with transport and also leads to
wear and tear of business travellers. How much better it would
be all round to let the technology do the travelling.”
The RAC Foundation predicts that demand for car travel will
increase 50% by 2050 and executive director Edmund King says:
“We have actively encouraged video meetings for the
past five years to help achieve Foundation goals of easing
congestion, cutting environment damage and improving the work/life
balance.”
Friends of the Earth says video meetings are a viable alternative
to business travel. It calculates that commuting causes 25%
of car traffic and another 14.8% by travel during work. The
organisation’s senior climate and transport campaigner,
Roger Higman, says: “Government forecasts project a
21% increase in road traffic by 2010 and a whopping 170% rise
in air travel by 2030.
“The new roads and runways proposed to cater for this
growth will cause huge problems for many communities and will
wreck nationally important wildlife and beauty spots. They
will only encourage traffic growth, causing yet more congestion
and undermining attempts to cut pollution. Video meetings
are the only instant solution.”
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Case study: Lex Vehicle Leasing
The death of an employer in a road accident has further
increased Lex Vehicle Leasing’s focus on cutting travel
between its offices in Marlow and Sale.
As well as reducing driving risks, the company, one of Britain’s
largest contract hire and leasing companies with a fleet of
120,000 vehicles, calculates that staff have:
- Spent the equivalent of 401 working weeks in their office,
rather than travelling the 352-mile seven-hour journey between
Marlow and Sale
- Saved more than 700,000 miles of unnecessary travel
- Saved more than 200 tonnes of CO2 emissions being emitted
into the atmosphere
- Used more than 20,500 fewer gallons of fuel, saving Lex
Vehicle Leasing more than £69,000 in fuel costs
Although launched as part of an all-embracing environmental
policy four years ago, video conferencing has clearly simultaneously
improved staff safety and has been used almost 900 times,
with meetings being attended by well over 2,000 employees.
Now, Lex Vehicle Leasing is encouraging other companies
with multi-site operations to install video conferencing,
as recognition of best practice in the implementation of managing
occupational road risk and the operation of an environmental
programme. Managing director Jon Walden says: “It makes
a lot of sense for companies whose sites are many miles apart,
as our figures show. “We have reduced the need for many
employees to drive between Sale and Marlow simply to attend
one meeting by investing in video conferencing. They can spend
an hour in the video room and then return to their desk, which
means they can spend more time with customers.
“The 352-mile journey between our two offices is particularly
gruelling as it takes in very congested areas of the M6. Not
only are we safety conscious, but, in the future, with road
charging more of an everyday occurrence, video conferencing
will continue to save Lex Vehicle Leasing money in lower travelling
costs. More importantly, it will mean our staff don’t
have to sit for hours on congested roads.”
Lex Vehicle Leasing says that all the estimates of savings
are “conservative” and don’t include, for
example, instances when the video equipment has been used
to talk to IT suppliers in India and the United States. In
addition, the company hasn’t measured items such as
the levels of stress that staff have avoided or taken into
account the safety issues connected with travelling up and
down some of the most congested parts of the UK motorway network.
However, the company admits that the death of an employee
in a motorway crash while driving between the two offices
re-emphasised its view that video conferencing has a crucial
role to play in 21st century business. Mr Walden says: “We
measure the headline benefits of our video conferencing equipment
through our ISO14001 Environmental Certification reporting
process, but I am sure there are many other benefits that
we haven’t even considered.”
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