Promoting a healthy balance in a world of virtual meetings
Since the lockdown struck, we’ve been spending more time catching up with people through video calls than ever before. Whether this is ‘happy hour’ quiz nights with friends, virtual workouts, checking in with family or other recreational activities to keep us connected - and that’s before considering the sheer amount of virtual facetime put in during meetings at work.
These recent changes in how we communicate have resulted in a colossal uplift in the usage of video chat tools, with Zoom’s daily active users having jumped from 10 million to over 200 million in just 3 months.
Whilst we’re fortunate to be living in a time where it’s so easy for everyone to stay in touch through these extraordinary circumstances, psychologists have warned that the ‘Zoom fatigue’ phenomenon could harm mental wellbeing if not effectively managed. Particularly at its most prevalent: in the workplace.
According to a survey by Doodle, 38% of employees said that a full week of virtual meetings left them feeling exhausted, while a further 30% claimed it causes them stress. With these figures in mind, we look at 4 simple strategies for HR to share with their people to help them better manage the increase in video calls and mitigate the risk to their wellbeing and productivity in the long-term.
1. Reduce the length of meetings
The meetings themselves are the most obvious place to start when it comes to creating meaningful change. If they are essential and the issue couldn’t possibly be handled by chat or email, there are many simple ways to cut down on the time spent in meetings to enable employees to get back to being productive. Consider formatting meetings to be short and succinct with an agenda that creates focus and engages participants. When death by PowerPoint won’t cut it, try devoting at least one-third of the time for discussion to provide further clarity on the objectives and subsequent actions. Finally, set hard-and-fast rules on the meeting length – and stick to these.
2. Keep track of minutes
There’s nothing worse than coming out of a meeting with no direction or being out of the loop if you weren’t able to attend in the first place. In the modern working world, communication technology has made it far easier to record entire meetings and many tools now even include transcribing features. This means absent attendees can get a full picture of what was covered and those present can refresh their memory at a later time so that everyone is on the same page and their responsibilities are clear. This becomes even more important when meetings are back-to-back with little to no time to digest the content in between.
3. Go old school and pick up the phone
Though it looks as though virtual meetings are here to stay, it rings true that you can have too much of a good thing. Information overload is one potential side effect of virtual calls, which highlights the need for a rethink when it comes to the type of interaction to maximise information absorption. It may help to review your scheduled meetings and determine whether they do warrant a 30-minute team call, or if a quick bulleted update via email or a direct conversation over the phone would instead suffice. These alternative approaches could also go some way toward negating employees feeling drained due to an excess of virtual meetings where they’re required to be ever-present.
4. Schedule in some buffer time
Whether you’re lucky enough to be able to schedule an entire meeting-free day or simply create breaks in between sessions, dedicating time away from meetings can not only help you focus more on your current workload but also relax knowing you won’t be diverted by other activities. That said, it’s also important to move away from your screen at regular intervals. Though it may sound counterintuitive, creating a habit of standing up and walking around for a few minutes can really benefit both your physical and mental state. You could take the opportunity to make a hot drink and give your eyes and mind a short rest while it brews or even step outside for some energising fresh air.
Though virtual meetings will continue to be a necessary evil to keep organisations on track during the lockdown and beyond, these simple suggestions can help to make a world of difference to ensure that they don’t become a hindrance to employee wellbeing and productivity.
Get more ideas on preparing your people for the ‘new normal’ by visiting our new HR Transformation Hub.
