Virtualni sastanci tijekom pandemije bolesti COVID-19: komunikacijski obrasci i prakse u poduzećima u Hrvatskoj

Abstract

Working from a distance and virtual meetings between stakeholders in business systems have become usual thing for many companies across the world. Speaking about maintaining con-tinuity of business in COVID-19 pandemic limited business circumstances, many employees will say that virtual meetings have become crucial communication tool for conversation with stakeholders. Nevertheless, although video conferences have been in use for the last several decades, back in time since video conferencing systems became available for the commercial use, one should not neglect the fact that contemporary world tracked significant rise of global trend in video conferences and virtual meetings use just at the end of January 2020, when the World Health Organization declared a global emergency due to COVID-19 pandemic spread. Global trend of intensified use of virtual communication was followed by many companies who never used this type of communication, nor anticipated the intent to make significant transition of communication into virtual world. Therefore, the paper represents the results of various studies concerning the influence of virtual meetings on employees. This paper explores the significance, communication patterns and practices regarding the use of digital platforms for maintaining virtual meetings in Croatian medium sized and large companies. A survey was conducted with employees (N=177) in medium sized and large companies of various busi-nesses in Croatia. Virtual meetings in medium sized and large companies are in focus because of the complexity of those communication systems in which the horizontal and vertical communication is necessity. The results show which digital platforms are mostly used for virtual meetings. Findings suggest that virtual meetings are conducted more often, but they do take less time, and the advantage is given to notebooks as a means for organization, running and participating in a virtual meeting.