Online meeting fatigue and the impact on your employees and their productivity
Our previous article covered working from home and the affects this was having on employees and productivity. This article covers on-line meetings and the impact it is having on employees and productivity.
Last year, the world of work experienced a huge shift practically overnight as meeting attendees switched from rushing between meeting rooms to rushing to find the right Zoom/Teams link to enable them to communicate with each other.
While the increase in the number of meetings has shifted for many of us, our need to come together in groups to collaborate, discuss project progress, and tackle work challenges is unchanged and ever present.
Holding virtual meetings adds layers of complexity for both meeting leaders and attendees. We aren’t used to the unnatural lack of nonverbal cues, prolonged eye contact, or overload of faces (including our own!) to process on the screen. Seeing our own faces as we talk or listen, and the associated hyperawareness of how we appear or emote, is stressful and often distracts us from concentrating on what is being discussed in the meeting.
The amount of effort required to process all of these stimuli while simultaneously thinking and communicating leads to extreme fatigue.
Recent recommendations for reducing “Zoom/Teams fatigue” have included avoiding multitasking, taking screen breaks, or switching to a phone call or email. While these strategies may be helpful for alleviating one’s own fatigue, they do not address the quality, content, or taxing nature of virtual meetings themselves.
A recent survey conducted in the USA and Europe across different industries showed that the vast majority of employees reported feeling fatigued and drained during and after their virtual meetings — more so than with in-person meetings. This came as no surprise. But there was much less consensus regarding their explanations for why they felt fatigued. The responses were varied for example some employees reported that virtual meetings are more fatiguing than those conducted in person because there are fewer social cues, whereas others appreciated the more detached meeting style. Some employees reported that they missed the easy social interactions of the office but did not want virtual meeting time bogged down by chitchat. What’s the best path forward given attendees’ varied preferences?
There is no universal solution; virtual meeting preferences signal the need for a tailored response from leaders. Don’t assume that your preferences are the same as your team’s or that all teams share the same preferences. For more effective and less fatiguing meetings, one of the most important things a leader can do is ask for feedback from meeting attendees.
To help guide virtual meetings, consider these potential questions:
- How helpful are our team meetings?
- What is working well and not so well? What should we do differently?
- To optimize your workflow, should meetings be scheduled in the morning, midday, or afternoon?
- How long should our meetings be?
- How often should meetings take place?
- Would you benefit from days or time blocks with no meetings?