Virtual Meetings

These guidelines define the principles of our employer brand design for internal and external meetings and events in order to regulate the proper use of the Bayer’s employer brand visual identity. They show how the employer brand visual identity is implemented in the world of meetings or other kind of online events related to employer branding.

Teams Meetings and the like

When preparing a virtual meeting, no matter if it is an internal or external meeting or a video recording, please give due consideration to the following guidelines:

• The room you are in should be quiet and otherwise suitable
• Your background image is important as it also communicates a message
• Good lighting is critical, e.g. sunlight from in front of you and not from behind
• Your clothes, e.g. small-patterned tops cause undesired effects on a screen, etc.
• Length of your presentation or speech – max. 10-15 minutes
• Virtual meeting and conference call etiquette, e.g. when to speak, when to mute your mike, etc.

Choice of backgrounds for Teams Meetings  

Please choose your background image for both external and internal video meetings according to the guidelines below, which are listed in a descending order of importance:

• Use a real room set-up as your first choice, e.g. your office or home, and consider the details mentioned.
• Use one of the existing photos of a real Bayer location, e.g. the entrance to our headquarters building (W11) in Leverkusen, an outside photo of W11, other Bayer    buildings, or one of the entrance areas to our offices and workplaces, etc.
• Use one of the selected images by topic we have on offer

How to implement these custom backgrounds in Teams

In June 2020, the Teams client was updated to support the option to update a custom background. To upload a custom image via the Teams desktop client, access the Apply background effects option in a meeting and click Add New. Browse to the folder holding the image file and select it. Teams then copies the file to %AppData%\Microsoft\Teams\Backgrounds\Uploads. The original file name is retained. Once copied to the Teams folder, you can select and use the image in a meeting.

For more information about other online live communication formats, click here.