Zoom has over 300 million daily active users, making it the most prominent video conferencing software on the planet. However, many users don’t get as much as they could from the popular video software because they never receive proper Zoom training.
Whether you’re an employee who wants to get better at Zoom or you manage workers who are struggling with the app, you’re in the right place. Keep reading to get our overview of Zoom training for the workplace in 2024.
Tips and tricks to highlight in Zoom training
Zoom 101 and helpful shortcuts
First thing’s first. Zoom is a virtual meeting software that your team can access on nearly any device they use, from Mac and PC to iOS and Android.
People can choose from several plan options. The most popular is the free version of Zoom, which lets teams host meetings with up to 100 participants.
However, the free plan has time limits (30 minutes for 1-on-1s and 40 minutes for larger sessions). You can restart a meeting after that if you need to, but this can be an inconvenient time-waster.
Once team members have completed the straightforward plan selection and account creation processes, you may want to introduce them to a list of common shortcuts.
The following can help your team save a lot of time when used correctly:
- Alt+A: To mute and unmute audio
- Alt+C: To begin and end recording to the cloud
- Alt+N: To change your camera to a new one if you have multiple setups
- Alt+F: To go in and out of full-screen mode
- Alt+S: To begin and end screen sharing
Familiarizing your team with these shortcuts can make it much easier for them to make changes to their settings during meetings without losing focus, which could have an impact on meeting productivity.
Different background options
Some research shows that 67% of people get distracted during Zoom meetings. There’s more than one way that can happen. Active, moving backgrounds are a major culprit.
That’s why it’s worth giving your employees instructions they can follow to change their backgrounds to something more professional and less distracting.
There are lots of options to choose from here. For example, your employees can set backgrounds that are:
- Static images that are saved to their computer
- Images from Zoom’s collection
- Slideshows that they can point to
- Blurred behind them
The process for changing a Zoom background is very straightforward. Users simply need to navigate to settings, then click on the “Backgrounds and Filters” option, and follow the instructions on their screen to complete the process.
Noise suppression features
Background noises are another major source of distraction for your employees. Zoom has built-in noise suppression features that you can instruct your team to use to ensure that these unwanted noises can’t diminish your productivity.
Your employees can access these features by clicking on the “Audio” tab and then finding the “Suppress Background Noise” section.
Note that your workers will have four different options to choose from here, each of which can be a good fit in different situations.
- Auto is the default noise suppression setting. It suppresses noises on an as-needed basis.
- Low provides constant low-level noise suppression. It retains a high percentage of the original sound while suppressing low-level unwanted noises.
- Medium is the best option for suppressing noises in standard environments. It can help with fans and pen tapping, among other sounds
- High provides the most aggressive noise suppression. It’s the best option for very loud environments, such as busy offices.
Screen sharing
Screen sharing is another super useful feature that your employees may want to take advantage of during Zoom calls. It gives them the ability to show their computer while delivering a presentation, which can help other team members follow along.
It’s not difficult to start doing this, either. Meeting leaders can simply click on the “Share Screen” button located in the meeting controls menu. They’ll have the option of sharing their entire screen or only certain browser tabs.
Zoom’s screen sharing feature also has some nice annotation tools built into it. For example, if you select the right settings, your entire team will be able to annotate the screen while you’re doing a presentation.
You can also use Zoom’s mouse spotlight tool while screen sharing to ensure that everyone is easily able to see where you place your mouse while giving an important demonstration.
Transcription and closed captioning
About 15% of American adults struggle with hearing. It can be difficult for these individuals to keep up with everything that’s being said during a Zoom call. Thankfully, Zoom has an integrated closed captioning feature that can help
To access this, the host of the meeting first needs to ensure that it’s turned on in the meeting control menu. Once that’s done, anyone who joins the meeting will be able to go to the meeting controls menu and click on the closed captioning button to begin seeing text pop up on the screen as it’s being spoken.
Instant closed captioning isn’t 100% accurate, but it can help people who struggle with hearing to keep track of conversations that would have otherwise had them entirely lost if they didn’t have closed captioning.
There are also tools out there that can automatically transcribe your Zoom meetings so that people who weren’t able to attend the sessions can review what happened in them after the fact.
To take advantage of this feature, you need to start by recording your Zoom meeting and saving it to the cloud. After that, you can use a third-party tool to transcribe the content of the meeting automatically. This feature is only available to users with a paid plan, but it will be valuable enough to warrant the price for many companies.
Tools you can add to Zoom
Zoom is so widely used that thousands of tools and add-ons have been created to help people get more out of it. Many of these may be worth trying for your employees.
For example, you can add Zylo to your Zoom calls to get live stats and summaries that can help you optimize your Zoom meetings in the future.
Consider adding VODIUM to your Zoom calls. Our lightweight teleprompter app integrates with Zoom easily and can help your team stay on track during meetings to reduce time waste.
There are also Zoom add-ons and tools that can help with:
- Multitasking
- Customer relationship management
- Integration with LinkedIn and Gmail
- Task automation
- Camera quality enhancement
There are truly too many great tools to list in a single article, so don’t hesitate to do some research online to see which could be the best fit for your company and employees.
Meeting privacy options
Zoom has a ton of built-in privacy features to help companies keep their meetings confidential and free of interruptions. Taking advantage of these will ensure that your company isn’t wasting precious meeting time taking care of unwanted entrants.
One of the single best things you can do to enhance Zoom privacy is to use waiting rooms. These only allow people to enter into a Zoom call after they’ve been manually approved by the host.
To turn these on, go to the “Meeting” tab, then click on “Security”, and toggle the “Waiting Room” feature into the on position.
You can also take the following steps to improve your Zoom call security:
- Enable end-to-end encryption to prevent people from joining the meeting before the host and from leaking private information inadvertently
- Never share your Zoom meeting link on social media or any publicly-accessible website
- Consider adding a passcode to your meeting to create an extra layer of authentication
Many companies spend lots of money to get the best video conferencing equipment. You don’t want that investment to be wasted by not taking privacy seriously and allowing people to steal your corporate information or interrupt your meetings.
Skip Zoom presentation training with VODIUM
Zoom meetings have quickly become the norm for employees at many companies, but it’s easy for speakers and listeners to get distracted during them, waste time, and diminish workplace productivity.
VODIUM could be your solution to those problems.
Our teleprompter app will help your employees stay on track while delivering presentations. It offers automatic scrolling and other helpful features to help teams deliver effective pitches to prospects and boost internal communications as well.Don’t just take our word for it.
Try a free trial of VODIUM today to experience the value we offer with no risk.
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