As companies consider post-pandemic work culture, the solutions to Zoom fatigue are not going to be as simple as eliminating self-protection (which the researchers recommend anyway) or abandoning video calls altogether, Mollie West Duffy said. co-author of “No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embraces Emotions at Work”, which consults with businesses on plans to return to the office.
“I do not think anyone has a playbook on how to do it perfectly, so we are all going to try to do our best and then we must be prepared to have two months of discussions on how to adapt,” said Mrs. . Duffy said.
For now, she says leaders and managers need to formalize the unspoken rules that have developed over the past year. “Some of the groups we spoke to said, ‘Let’s all turn on our videos for the first five minutes of a call, if people call and then turn it off,'” she said. Duffy said. “Or tell your team which meeting videos should be on and which meetings can turn off video.”
“The standard has just been turned on video, and it doesn’t have to be eight hours a day.”
Certain meetings, such as the town halls of all businesses, can end up being standard meetings, as it is worse to have a few people involved while everyone is in a conference room. “You do not want people to be left out of account and feel that they cannot be heard,” she said.
In May last year, after listening to employees, IBM CEO Arvind Krishna posted a Work From Home Pledge on his LinkedIn profile. He noted several times that turning off video was ‘100% ok’, and also undertook to keep video calls shorter than the normal duration of 30 or 60 minutes, which would make them 20 minutes or 45 minutes.
“Video fatigue is real,” he said.