Video meetings create remote workspaces. Whether you are a full-time remote freelancer, a product manager holding a cross timezone call or a manager using video meetings in-house to social distance, video meetings are a key part need in modern workspaces.
I explored top virtual meeting extensions space for the “Health & Wellness” category looking for inspiring examples of how “employee wellbeing experience” has been adopted for remote workspaces.
One of the top features I found that sets apart the video meeting tools is the “app store” like or marketplace experience.
These are resource library where developers can share custom made widgets and plugins. Teams and solo employees can browse and download add-ons to extend their desktop or cloud software capabilities.
Wellbeing in the collaboration space
Slack, actually started out as an internal communication tool at the company of the founder of Flickr. It reaches beyond being just a video meeting tool focuses on collaborative communication. It offers chat, knowledge sharing and brands itself as an alternative to email.
Slack has both a native (desktop) app and a web client. They also have a Slack developer tools site making it easy to build in your own integrations and an apps directory so that you can browse through more than 2,400 apps.
The directory as a “Health/Wellness” section in their app directory (they also have a “HR & Team Culture” section). A few notable ideas:
Remote teams wellbeing needs integrated into virtual meetings
Zoom is a cloud based tool which gives it an advantage in ease of use remotely. It has both a desktop app, a browser client and a mobile app which presents a unique challenge to the experience of integrating it with your wellbeing software or activities.
There is a Zoom marketplace with more than 1,000 apps. Their marketplace is supported by 3rd party developers and the company supports open innovation to their tools . They offer a Zoom developer resource site and list all the tools to make your own extension.
I put in a search query for “health & wellness”, and only 3 apps appear:
Microsoft Teams is a third party tool developed by Microsoft. At my company it was rolled out as a replacement for Skype (formerly Lync) and Livelink.
They have an app store called “AppSource” with more than 600 integrations. Their developer documentation does include SDKs and APIs so they do support open development of the tool.
Microsoft is a software focused on enterprise software needs, and while workforce wellbeing is a critical part of mental wellness their list of add-ons for health, wellness or culture is lacking. (basically you are on your own for integrating this with your wellbeing program).
A better resource for Teams apps is ???
Remote wellness for the rest of the video meeting space
The commonality of virtual workspace is still new and some of the tools are too new to have a strong development community. Lots of solo employees and laggard companies are just using old video meeting tools that are harder to integrate with new technology.
Some of these platforms are desktop based and do not have open developer tools to support an integration marketplace. They might also be engineered in programming languages that are not easy for 3rd party devs to integrate with. Alternatively integration may not be part of the business model.
I had to find wellbeing integrations for them on other plugin resources or lists like Github, alternativeto.net, product hunt.
Want to find other ideas for "flex location" or "in-office teams" ?
Try these keywords in your search.
- wellbeing activities via skype
- wellbeing tools for remote teams
- wellbeing activities for students
- team wellbeing activites
- emlployee wellbeing initiatives
- virtual wellbeing ideas
Conclusion
In the space for “Employee wellbeing experience”I found lots of full softwares, services and programs. Many of the top for virtual workplaces have built out a good experience for integrating wellness and wellbeing tools. Employees and extra conservative companies may find good options popping up on developer communities. If you are crafting your own you may find some great ideas just searching for the right keywords and phrases.
