3 ways live captions can help remote workers

With the exception of the few still with us who lived through the Second World War, no one has experienced anything like what we’ve seen the past year.

The world ground to a halt with COVID-19, economies shut down, flights were grounded and millions of people were ordered to stay home.

This of course resulted in a massive rise in remote workers, most of whom had never worked from home before.

And while working from home certainly brings its own challenges, one of the things that can help is captioning.

Here are three ways your business, your staff and your clients can all benefit from captioning, either live or offline.

Zoom calls

Most people had never heard of Zoom before the lockdown, the software was mainly used by businesses and universities, but now children and grandparents up and down the country are calling each other on it.

It has become the weapon of choice for business meetings, and while it’s the next best thing to sitting in a conference room, online meetings still have their problems.

Technology failing when you need it the most is usually the most common complaint of virtual meetings. Microphones cutting out, background noise getting in the way, lagging images… all these things can be somewhat fixed with live captions.

If someone can’t hear what’s being said, either through a technology failure or because they are hard of hearing, then it’s certainly easier to follow along if there are captions scrolling across the bottom of the screen.

And if someone misses a meeting entirely, then those live captions are now a recorded transcript of the meeting, so anyone can catch up with what they missed.

Educational videos

Lots of work involves training, and without the hands-on experience of an apprenticeship, online educational videos are the next best thing.

Captions in these videos are important for so many reasons, especially when it comes to comprehension and information retention.

Studies have shown that people understand and remember things easier if there are captions along with the video.

They are also important for those who don’t speak English as a first language. Live captions help foreign workers to fully understand what’s going on, especially when it comes to technical subjects.

It also helps them important if people in the meetings have an accent they are not used to, or maybe speak too quickly or quietly.

Working from home is still working

Passed in 2010, The Equality Act encapsulated all nine previous anti-discrimination laws and rendered discrimination illegal in the workplace.

This included discrimination against gender, sexuality, race, and disability, which, of course, includes deaf and hard of hearing people.

The Equality Act applies to businesses and employers, and, during lockdown, means that working from home is also the workplace.

Deaf and hard of hearing employees must not be discriminated against in any way, and that includes being left out in virtual meetings.

Live captions are not only beneficial for everyone, but a legal necessity in some cases.

Call on us for live captions

When it comes to live captions, we are the leading experts in the country.

We have years of experience live captioning events, lectures, and conferences, all over the world and in many different languages.

Our speech-to-text reporter (STTR) can caption word for word at up to 360 words per minute – that’s as fast as someone speaks – with only a one-second time lag.

This allows deaf and hard of hearing employees to stay on top of business meetings, word by word, at the same speed as their peers hear it, levelling the playing field for everyone.

If you would like to know more about live captions then please don’t hesitate to contact us today.

Our friendly and experienced experts will be happy to answer any questions you might have.