The Importance of Live Transcriptions and Captions

Microsoft has been working overtime to meet and exceed the needs of the new hybrid workforce. Live transcriptions and captions are two of its latest tools for helping employers worldwide create a more inclusive work environment. They are crucial for people who may have impaired hearing or follow concepts better when they read captions instead of listening to people speak. Managers can also repurpose transcripts later on for a wide range of uses.

What Are Live Transcriptions?

Microsoft now allows Teams meeting hosts to create live transcriptions in 27 languages. This translates the voice data in the meeting to text that people can follow. This text appears on the right side of the screen. It includes the name of the person who speaks unless users choose to turn this setting off. You can then save the full transcript of the meeting at the end.

What Is Real-Time Captioning?

Like live transcripts, captioning converts spoken words into text as the Teams meeting unfolds. This new meeting experience feature also includes speaker attribution, making it even easier to follow who said what. However, attendees to the meeting can still choose to turn off attribution for themselves. Unlike transcripts, the words show at the bottom of the screen, and you cannot save the final collection of captions.

Why Should You Use Live Transcription and Captions?

Live transcriptions and captions might seem like an extra hassle. You may even worry that it could cost you valuable screen space, but there are some excellent reasons to reconsider.

1. Hearing Impairments

People who have partial or full hearing loss may be able to read lips. However, this is difficult to do in a conversation that involves multiple people. Consequently, live transcriptions and captions make it easier for deaf and hard of hearing persons to follow the conversation. They can then double-check the information via saved transcription files.

2. Foreign Languages

People who learned a foreign language primarily through books and writing may struggle with understanding spoken language. For these people, reading transcripts and captions makes it much easier for them to follow a conversation when people speak. They, too, can download the transcription files to double-check the information.

3. Schedule Flexibility

Sometimes, important meetings occur at times that aren’t convenient to everyone who needs the resulting information. Some people may operate on different work schedules, live in different time zones or have other meetings to attend. Saved transcripts make it easy for these individuals to catch up with the most important aspects of a meeting while not sitting through a whole video.

4. Bandwidth Consideration

While working overseas, employees may not have unlimited access to high-speed internet. Videos require a lot of bandwidth to watch or download, so this can prove challenging. These individuals can benefit from having downloads of live transcriptions at the ready. It makes it easier for them to catch up on noteworthy information from meetings they might have missed.

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5. Contractual Agreements

Many business decisions still take place verbally instead of via written contract. Even when a written contract follows, the initial agreement likely happened verbally. When this happens via conference calls, it becomes easier to check a wide range of transcripts for the necessary details. This takes less time than watching multiple videos looking for the specific numbers or dates agreed upon.

6. Training Material

When managers make new decisions, it affects the way everyday workers complete their job tasks. Human resource professionals also need to change the way they recruit, hire and train new professionals on the job. HR professionals can use saved live transcriptions to pinpoint the specifics of these changes and update training material accordingly.

7. Content Creation

From newsletters to ebooks to articles, businesses rely on content marketing to outperform their competitors. However, coming up with new material can easily become an overwhelming task. Group discussions or interviews with top executives in the company can yield useful information. Then the transcripts from these discussions can be converted into content to paint the professionals and the company as authoritative figures in their respective fields.

Get Live Transcriptions and Captions for Your Business

To access the best and latest features of Microsoft, including live transcriptions with all their benefits, businesses should migrate to the cloud. Many business owners worry that migration could disrupt their business and take a long time. However, our trained professionals can complete the process quickly and with minimal disruption — if any — to your operations. Contact our team at Cloudficient for a quote.