What is an interactive whiteboard?
Interactive whiteboards, also known as interactive displays, are large touch-screen displays where employees can collaborate in real-time. These products work across platforms, so Mac, PC, Chrome, and mobile users don’t have to deviate from their favorite platforms and stumble through new operating systems.
Interactive whiteboards are quickly becoming a go-to tool in in-person office settings. The ability to shift between project topics and edit presentations and data in real-time improves productivity and efficiency. They also help employees strengthen relationships, improving their output and work environment.
Interactive whiteboards for business keeps teams on task. Using this tech may give your business the boost it needs to reach productivity and retention goals.
Benefits of an Interactive Whiteboard in the Office
Increased Engagement
One of the main benefits of an interactive whiteboard in the office is its ability to keep employees engaged and focused on a project. Having an interactive whiteboard in the office reduces the friction that slows down meetings and sends employee attention spans plummeting.
While occasional distractions may not seem like much in the grand scheme of things, the time spent getting employees fully immersed in their work adds up to a lot of lost productivity.
Rather than shuffling papers and creating lists of dozens of to-do items for once a meeting is over, the benefits of an interactive whiteboard mean that you can slash through those to-dos right now, annotate documents in real-time, and have a space where everyone involved can refer back to the same document. That leads to the next main benefit of Interactive Whiteboard in the office.
Enhanced Teaching and Learning
A major benefit of interactive whiteboards is that they allow for better employee education. Today, many employees are working remotely and clocking in over video chats and instant messages. While these modes of communication are great, they fall short when it comes to employee training, workshops, ongoing education, and explaining complex concepts that are better understood visually.
That’s where interactive whiteboards for office settings come into the mix. Using interactive whiteboards for business allows employees to visually ideate and explain complex concepts, all of which leads to better information retention and innovation.
In addition, employees can look over, edit, and create documents and presentations in real-time. This streamlines the entire process of design, revision, and finalization, making your employees feel more productive and less stressed.
Interactive whiteboards are also incredibly easy to use, which means adding it to your workflow today could immediately boost output, collaboration, and training efficiency.
Interactive whiteboards in the office also give workers the opportunity to give and receive feedback in real-time, increasing worker communication and efficacy. The shared workspace also means that individual contributions and edits can be traced back to their creator, making it easy to track productivity. Knowing the source of each contribution makes it easy to know who to request further information or edits from.
Many people don’t fully understand new concepts the first time around and most don’t remember the minutes of meetings that may actually prove to be important. That’s why interactive whiteboards for businesses allow users to record meetings and presentations for later review. This decreases the need for follow-up meetings and repetitive email chains, giving workers more time to focus on what matters most.
Heightened Collaboration
We know that being able to contribute to a conversation or brainstorming session directly increases engagement. Interactive whiteboards for business also allow you to extend this power to outside parties, further strengthening client relationships and improving client satisfaction.
Another major benefit of interactive whiteboards is that presentations become conversations where participants can annotate shared documents and share their own relevant data. Overall, users are more engaged because presentation facilitators are now able to speak with them instead of at them.
Being heard at work is one of the most important factors to employee happiness, a variable that directly correlates to worker productivity, engagement, and retention.
Should you get a digital whiteboard for your business?
An interactive whiteboard in the office allows you to collaborate with your team in real-time from anywhere. With the current workforce increasingly preferring remote work, these whiteboards are the best way to engage in collaborative breakout sessions and engaging presentations and training while building the camaraderie usually found in physical workplaces.
This tech often takes little effort to set up and pairs perfectly with popular video conferencing programs, making it a seamless addition to your business.
The added benefits of increased productivity, communication, education, engagement, and more means you may need an interactive whiteboard for business to stay competitive.
How much do interactive whiteboards cost?
Interactive whiteboards for business can range. Their range in price depends on features and brand.
The price may seem like a lot at first glance, but it’s important to see this new tool as an investment in your workforce and workflow. When weighing the pros and cons of investing in an interactive whiteboard you must remember to consider how much time and money will be saved by increasing worker productivity and communication.
What is the best digital whiteboard for an office?
The best digital whiteboard for an office is the one that fits your budget and leans into the tech aspect that your business needs the most.
That said, here are the top three digital whiteboards for business that caught our attention.
The Samsung Flip
This interactive whiteboard comes in two different versions. One is portable while the other is mounted. Both give a paper-like experience, allowing users to scribble thoughts down without worrying about accidentally switching between documents or sharing their screen.
Promethean provides the best digital whiteboards for office collaboration. Affordable without sacrificing quality, these mounted interactive whiteboards can support more than a dozen simultaneous users on the same project. Bluetooth and WiFi compatible, these devices are go-to’s for any creative workplace.
Additionally, one of Promethean’s ActivPanels can sense when someone enters its space, making it that much quicker to boot up and get to work.
The Surface Hub 2S
Microsoft’s Surface Hub 2S comes in two sizes, with the larger version providing an 85” display. This is a good digital whiteboard for offices on the go. Both sizes are mobile, making it easy to shift from giving an in-person presentation to a virtual meeting from the comfort of an office.
On the downside, the Surface Hub 2S is expensive, so be sure about your choice before throwing down five figures on tech that doesn’t seem to differ much from other (more affordable) options.
Interested in learning more? Find product specifications, additional resources, and request a free demo of the Promethean Titanium Pro interactive display here.