Almost a year on from the start of Britain’s first lockdown, "Zoom fatigue" has taken its toll on the British workforce.
Around 47pc of people who use video conferencing tools regularly suffer from the condition, according to a recent study. Ofcom claims that more than seven in ten people are holding video meetings at least weekly.
Now, companies across the UK are introducing "meeting amnesties" to try and limit the risk of burn out among their remote workforce.
Tesco, for instance, is allowing office staff to choose the periods when they are most productive and block out "thinking time" every week, where no meetings can be scheduled.
Channel 4 has introduced daily lunch breaks which last an hour and a half alongside "Meeting Free Fridays." Meanwhile, recipe box company Gousto has set aside time every day for “time to recharge”.
In the meetings-dependent advertising industry, media agency Merkle says members of its analytics team are now discouraged from scheduling meetings on Thursday mornings so they had dedicated time to "concentrate".
"They were finding that because everybody was working remotely and you don’t have the informal cup of coffee chats, people were pushing half an hour meetings in to resolve often quite small things at the start of lockdown," says Anne Stagg, Merkle UK boss, adding the company uses Microsoft’s calendar software Outlook which nudges its users to create meetings that last half an hour.
Other client facing parts of the business have been encouraged to take "walking meetings" since late last year.
"A lot of people were saying they were putting on weight and weren’t feeling as energetic because they weren’t getting exercise so it was really to encourage people to look after their physical health and their mental health in equal measure", said Stagg, who estimated she takes around five walking meetings a week, all with her video off.
What to do if you are suffering from WFH burnout
Jack Oakley, an account director at a London-based media agency with 1,500 staff, who asked for his company not be named, said he had been feeling burnt out before a series of "meeting amnesties" were introduced, discouraging team meetings before 10am on Mondays, over Wednesday lunchtimes and after 3pm on Fridays.
However he still finds himself fixating on his own facial features and mannerisms during calls.
"With [Microsoft] teams, you get the little box in the bottom right hand corner and that’s always there so you can always see yourself," he said. "Of course you do catch yourself looking at yourself and noticing weird ways your face looks or your mannerisms, or how much you use your eyebrows."
It follows a study last month by Stanford University which found that the constant eye contact and being forced to look at ourselves is what makes video calls so exhausting is exacerbating ‘Zoom fatigue’.
Professor Jeremy Bailenson, director of the Stanford University Virtual Human Interaction Lab, California, believes that when someone’s face is close to ours through a video call, our brains interpret it as an intense situation that is either going "to lead to mating or to conflict."
He suggests that people should take Zoom out of the full-screen option and reduce the size of the window to help create a ‘personal space bubble’ between you and others. He also recommends users should use the ‘hide self-view’ button unless they need to speak or be on screen.
Robbie Ashton, Senior Account Manager at advertising agency Greenlight, said he didn’t notice any signs of Zoom fatigue in himself or among close colleagues.
But he attributes this to a proactive stance taken by his company. Just a few months into the pandemic, his agency released a "playbook", telling staff the video-on function was only required if they were presenting to clients.
"Now, it’s more than normal to not have your video on," he said.
Свежие комментарии