The world is facing a global crisis with the spread of the novel coronavirus (aka COVID-19). In an attempt to contain it and limit its action, authorities in the most affected areas ask people to stay at home and avoid travelling for as much as possible.

Luckily, we have the technology to support these measures without affecting people’s livelihood. Due to access to a broadband Internet connection, mobile devices, and video conference hardware, many people can work remotely. As such, students can participate in online classes, teachers and educators can use online platforms and employees can work from home.

So, to make sure your organization continues to function even in the unwanted situation of a coronavirus outbreak in your city, Google decided to extend the Hangouts Meet features that were only available to Enterprise accounts to all Google Workspace users.

Hangouts Meet is a piece of collaborative software that allows for daily meetings with the staff/partners/collaborators even if not all members are in the same location. Also, you can share and collaborate on documents in real-time, and depending on the type of Google Workspace accounts, the software offers other features.

With the new access levels, all Google Workspace customers will soon have free access to features like:

• Meetings for up to 250 participants per call
• Live streaming for up to 100K viewers within the domain
• Record meetings to Google Drive

The first two features come in handy when you need to address a wider audience, but we think the third (recording meetings in Drive) is more useful for SMBs. As such, you can record important meetings and share them with people who couldn’t attend.

In fact, we use recorded Hangouts Meet for training new staff. There is a very handy screen sharing feature where you can show viewers how to do things, and by combining the two (recording and screen sharing) we can improve the training experience.

Lastly, if you still haven’t implemented Google Workspace for your company, now is the time! The software is not just useful for organizing meetings between remote members; it’s also useful for coordinating emails, documents, calendar appointments, and more from anywhere. In addition, you can set various levels of access, so all employees can continue working even if they’re not in the office.

Whether you want to believe it or not, the chances that this pandemic will hit your city are pretty high. But we shouldn’t allow it to completely disrupt our way of living and working!

Speak with the Onsite Helper team to find out how your organisation can work completely remotely. Ph: 1300 889 839 or email [email protected]