Partner POV | The IT guide to professional grade headsets

This article was provided by our partner, HP Poly.

Enabling productivity across your business where not everyone is in the office every day relies on communication that is easy, accessible, and clear, no matter where workers are located. The ability to hear and be heard clearly on both sides of a call makes collaboration more effective and provides a better experience for everyone. 

Professional-grade headsets are designed with features that boost productivity and satisfaction while enabling IT to ensure maximum uptime and service.

How to choose wired or wireless?

Professional headsets are available as wired, wireless,or both. Luckily, it's simple to choose which device works best for different styles of workers. A headset needs to suit the workstyle of the users as well as the needs of their workspace.

• Do they need freedom to move around during calls?
• Do they need wired simplicity and security while they take calls at their desk?
• Or do they need something that can be used in both wired and wireless modes?

Consider the pros and cons of wired headsets and Bluetooth® and DECT™ (Digital Enhanced Cordless Communications) wireless headsets.

Noise cancellation technology for business-quality sound

For businesses, it's critical that both sides of the call are clearly heard. It's all too easy to disrupt an important call with poor audio or the fact that your voice is drowned out by lots of background noise. Headsets and earbuds designed for work use both AI enhanced noise-canceling microphones that reduce background noise and active noise cancellation which helps the wearer concentrate no matter their surroundings.

Microphone technologies No matter which headset shape or form factor the employee is using, the microphone picks up their words and clearly transmits what they are saying to the people on the other side of the call. The closer the microphone is to the mouth, the larger the signal that can be picked up, and hence lesser impact of background noise. Since users want varying wearing styles, a variety of methods to remove background noises are used — from special noise-canceling microphones to multiple microphones that focus on voice to AI-enhanced noise reduction that can process and remove the background noise.

HP Poly Acoustic Fence uses spatially aware microphones to keep nearby sounds from competing with the headset wearer's voice and ensure their words are the only thing listeners hear. 

HP Poly NoiseBlockAI technology uses machine learning to identify common background noises and intelligently filters them out when you are speaking. Traffic, clicking keyboards, barking dogs, ambient background conversations, and more will be reduced so your voice shines through.

The anatomy of professionalgrade audio devices

Professional headsets and earbuds are specifically designed to improve employee productivity, with a full range of features that enable clear audio on both sides of the call. A choice of styles lets you match individual preferences.

Tips for selecting headsets for your workers

Of course, not all employees work the same way. And they now work anytime and anywhere, across varied locations and spaces. Professional headsets are designed with this kind of flexibility in mind. 

In order to choose the right headsets, take a look at your workers' workstyles and workspaces to identify and understand what's needed. You may recognize some of these examples in your organization.

Pro Tip: Establish collaboration device standards for your organization and provide a shortlist of approved or certified vendors and solutions. Guidelines will help IT avoid the time-consuming hassles that come with managing, updating, and monitoring disparate devices and platforms, such as Microsoft Teams and Zoom. A corporate standard will also help control costs.

Remote management ensures productivity

Remote management enables your IT team to easily monitor audio devices across the organization and keep employees collaborating productively. A single cloud-based app simplifies:

• Updates: Quickly update firmware and software across your fleet in bulk, eliminating the time-consuming hassle of updating headsets one-by-one.
• Troubleshooting: Monitor headsets in real time to detect and quickly troubleshoot issues before they escalate into downtime.
• Inventory management: Keep track of headsets wherever they're used with clear crossvendor visibility of deployment across your organization and geolocating capabilities.

How can HP Poly help?

Whether your employees are in the office, at home, or on the go, HP Poly can help you create an environment that keeps them connected, collaborating, and performing at their best from anywhere. 

With HP Poly professional-grade audio and video devices are part of a broad ecosystem of solutions that deliver innovation and ease across your hybrid work environment. 

Count on us for ANC and other built-in smart features, worry-free interoperability across leading UC platforms, simplified device management, and the services you need to roll out the right audio and video solutions for your team.