Interview: Zoom beyond lockdown
As a company that was synonymous with the pandemic, Zoom appeared to be an overnight success.
Shares jumped around 360 per cent over the course of 2020, and everyone across the world seemed to be glued to a software that was relatively unknown the year before.
Fast forward to 2022 and it seems Zoom fatigue has well and truly set in. Shares continue to plummet, falling 61 per cent in the last year, and competitors are fighting to grab the pool of remote workers who are still logging on from their sofas.
Speaking to CityAM, Harry Moseley, Global Chief Information Officer of Zoom, explained that a fundamental change has happened in the workplace.
“When you look at the pre-pandemic world, our preference used to be in- person, which we would then augment with video.”
“Now what we have learnt over the past two years is how we can develop professional relationships in a virtual world – whether you work in healthcare, investment banks, or education.”
“My prediction is that in a post-pandemic world, we will start to see video first and in-person interactions second”, Moseley said, sitting from his home office in the US, with his “pandemic puppy” by his feet.
His example comes within the Zoom organisation itself.
Moseley, Blackstone veteran and former KPMG managing director, explained how Zoom now gives all employees three options: entirely remote work, hybrid work and in-office.
At the heart of this policy is flexibility, regardless of their location.
Yet, despite his assertions that hybrid working is “here to stay”, it is interesting to see how many quasi ‘in-person’ features the firm is now introducing.
For starters, Zoom will be launching a ‘huddle’ feature later this year, where users will be able to video call their colleagues and ‘tap’ them on the virtual shoulder for a private audio chat.
“This is a replacement for those water cooler and corridor moments you would have had in the office”, Moseley told CityAM
The tech firm will also be introducing a hot desk feature, where teams will be able to share calendars and plan their office days; Zoom will help facilitate that system.
Nonetheless, it felt like a slight paradox of on the one hand viewing that in-person meetings are fundamental, but also investing millions of dollars into virtual reality software.
The Californian-based company notably agreed a partnership with Meta Oculus in September, which will tie-up Zoom Whiteboard and Meetings with Horizon Workrooms, a virtual reality meeting room.
In Moseley’s view, culture can be built remotely, and technology is the solution for a permanent hybrid move.
Discussing Zoom’s chief exec Eric Yuan’s overarching vision, he said the company would like to get to a point where Zoom is fully immersive: “He [Yuan] sees a world where you’re drinking a cup of coffee on Zoom and I’ll be able to smell it”.
In essence, Zoom plays into a narrative that says that the working world has changed for the better: a world where the office is completely reinvented and work is best done at home, or wherever in the world you may be.
Nonetheless, there is also part of its strategy that suggests that even with all the virtual worlds, artificial intelligence and augmented reality, there is still the desperate need to be human.