Optimizing Zoom for a connected workforce

The modern workplace has evolved far beyond physical office walls, with teams now distributed across time zones and continents. However, organizations face a pressing challenge with hybrid and remote working: How can they maintain alignment, productivity, and engagement when teams aren’t in the same room?

This is where Zoom shines. Today, Zoom combines collaboration tools like Meetings, Chat, and Whiteboard with Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) solutions such as Workforce Management and Quality Management.

When used strategically, organizations can use Zoom to optimize workforce productivity while connecting their teams. However, this requires more than tools alone – organizations must also create the conditions where people can do their best work. With Zoom, this means three key things:

• Harnessing features that reduce friction and improve flow
• Leveraging AI-powered insights to coach, schedule, and plan
• Fostering collaboration that works across locations and time zones

In this article, we’ll explore how you can unlock these benefits through Zoom Workforce Management, part of the Workforce Engagement Management (WEM) suite.

Introduction to workforce optimization with Zoom

Zoom Workforce Management’s smart, integrated features are designed for modern teams and enable greater productivity. Here’s how those benefits translate for businesses.

1. Enhanced communication flow

Beyond Workforce Management, Zoom’s broader collaboration tools (Meetings, Chat, Whiteboard) complement workforce optimization by enhancing communication flow.

Persistent Chat channels keep discussions accessible and organized, reducing the email overload that slows teams down. While breakout rooms allow for spontaneous problem-solving during larger meetings, encouraging active participation. And by cultivating a video-first culture, organizations can build trust and connection – even when teams are remote.

2. Integrated, streamlined workflows

Zoom’s calendar integrations with Google and Outlook make it easy to schedule, join, and manage meetings. There’s also built-in file sharing, ensuring documents are always accessible within the chat or meeting. Plus, Zoom’s integration with CRM systems like Salesforce, and productivity tools like Trello or Slack, keeps all work connected and easily accessible.

3. Smart, scalable team management

With Zoom Quality Management, also part of WEM, every customer interaction is automatically scored using AI – helping managers identify patterns and coach with purpose. Conversely, analytics inside Zoom Workforce Management provide visibility into staffing levels, adherence to schedules, and CX performance trends – helping supervisors fine-tune resources in real time. And with straightforward access to meeting recordings, screen capture, and transcripts, it’s easy to create an archive for asynchronous access, onboarding, and reviews.

4. Flexibility for geographically dispersed teams

Zoom’s asynchronous (async) collaboration tools bridge time zones, making global teamwork frictionless. This ensures team members get a consistent user experience whether they’re working in-office or remote. What’s more, Zoom’s built-in scalability means you can flexibly grow your workforce without needing to reinvent your communication setup.

Real-world workforce optimization use cases

To understand the full potential of Zoom for workforce optimization, it’s helpful to understand where it delivers real-world impact:

Contact centers

The Zoom WEM suite is ideal for contact centers, combining forecasting, scheduling, and analytics to ensure the right agents are available when customers need them. Supervisors can also automatically score 100% of interactions using AI, rather than spending valuable time and only manually reviewing a fraction of them. Integrated speech analytics helps identify coaching moments, while adherence dashboards ensure teams stay on task.

However, it’s important to note that while Zoom Workforce Management is currently designed for contact centers, combining it with Zoom’s collaboration tools like Meetings, Chat, and Whiteboard, enables organizations to also support knowledge workers and global teams.

Distributed knowledge work

Project managers can use Zoom Whiteboard for ideation sessions that carry on asynchronously post-meeting. Onboarding new hires is streamlined with recorded sessions, reducing pressure on existing staff to repeat knowledge.

Global teams

Zoom’s async tools like Chat, recordings, and transcripts allow for time zone-independent collaboration. And when there are meetings with teams in different countries, real-time translation and multi-language support reduce friction by ensuring everyone is included.

These examples show how the right strategy can help you take Zoom further to become a critical tool for productivity and growth.

Best practices for Zoom workforce optimization

To tap into Zoom’s full business value, you need to establish the correct structure, standards, and strategic use for your teams.

Here are five best practices you can adopt to successfully make Zoom part of your workforce management strategy:

1. Establish communication governance
Create dedicated channels, like project-based or departmental channels, and encourage use for day-to-day communication. Consider setting response time expectations to avoid lag and share meeting etiquette guidelines, like always having an agenda or encouraging video use for key discussions.

2. Secure and manage access thoughtfully
Use Zoom’s role-based permissions to ensure only authorized users can access sensitive meetings or recordings. In addition, you should always limit guest access to specific, pre-defined areas and ensure any links come with an expiration date. You can also set meeting passwords and use waiting rooms for external-facing sessions for added security.

3. Leverage performance data
Track adherence, schedule compliance, and team utilization patterns to create reports that provide valuable insights into engagement levels across the team. For collaboration workflows, you can supplement this with meeting attendance and follow-up tracking. Importantly, remember to run quarterly reviews using insights from Zoom Quality Management to improve communication standards at your organization.

4. Forecasting and scheduling with Zoom Workforce Management
Build predictive schedules using historical engagement data and staffing KPIs like occupancy or speed of answer. This will help you to plan weeks or months in advance, adjusting for known variables like seasonality and product launches. You can also leverage drag-and-drop scheduling tools to reduce admin burden, improve forecast accuracy, and make the whole process seamless.

5. Prepare your infrastructure
Start by ensuring your network can support high-quality video across all users. Then standardize devices and Zoom client versions across the team to ensure consistency, working with IT to integrate Zoom with your internal tools, like HRIS and project management.

Three tips to maximize team collaboration on Zoom

Once your foundation is in place, champion Zoom for collaboration to help firmly embed its features into employees’ day-to-day workflows.

Master Zoom’s features

• Use Zoom Whiteboard for brainstorming, planning, or mapping out customer journeys
• Run live polls during meetings to encourage engagement
• Use emoji reactions to reduce verbal interruptions and improve flow

Optimize every Zoom meeting

• Use templates for recurring meetings, like stand-ups and check-ins, to maintain consistency
• Add breakout rooms to longer sessions for small-group discussions
• Set up automated follow-ups and reminders to ensure actions are tracked and completed

Encourage continuous collaboration through Zoom

• Use Chat to follow up on meeting topics asynchronously
• Share documents directly in Zoom and collaborate on them with integrated tools like Zoom Docs or SharePoint
• Set up virtual co-working sessions where teams work on individual tasks while staying available for ad hoc collaboration

Looking for support with Zoom workforce optimization?