Virtual meetings tire people because we're doing them wrong, says new research
phys.org
phys.org
From my personal experience I can confirm that participating in virtual meetings while walking is very productive. As long as mainly audio is used to communicate.
Turn off self-view.
I found it much less distracting and tiring once I could no longer constantly see myself or see the moving face while I was talking.
When I was working in the office, my face was visible 100% of the time in meetings.
For me it's a sign of respect, just like not playing on your phone in a in-person meeting.
Apart from scientific reasons...I also just like to talk and see my colleagues from time to time when we are already not in the same office, but I know that varies from person to person.
Not sure if it’s an ADHD hyper-focus thing or what.
It's the same as presenting to a room where half the attendees are on their phone - while it's conceivable that some of them are using it to (say) find a detail that the presenter missed, the more likely explanation is that they're checking their emails and/or Instagram.
I tell my team (remote infosec team) video is optional: on if you'd like, but no concerns if off. Respect and output is distinct from whether your camera is on, and I want those I work with (directs and peers) to be most comfortable during our work sessions, including consideration to introverts, those who might show signs of being on the spectrum and adverse to full time video, and so on. There will be no written test, but it will show if you are consistently not paying attention in these forums (assuming you are properly measuring output).
I admit this is culture and org dependent. I encourage those with the authority and aptitude to build good culture whenever within their control.
(my learnings for this topic come from several years at a fully remote startup, a variety of larger enterprises, and my own interactions with my children who are on the spectrum, have ADHD like myself, etc; TLDR give grace, its cheap)
We basically have a company rule for cameras on all the time unless you are eating or bandwidth is low.
I personally enjoy low latency, push to talk voice only services like mumble as well but video calls with all cameras on are irreplaceable.
Working and talking with people is more than the words they use. It's also facial expressions, gestures, and general body language. It helps smooth conversations that may be confusing.
I also agree with the OP - turn off self-view. The tumblr post is now, and will always be accurate:
>I am Narcissus and my little zoom square is my lake. --@somfeelingood
So I challenge your notion that we are more than just the words we use. I would say we are entirely the words we use. A lack of vocabulary or mispronouncing words but a good facial expression or body language isn’t going to go very far with me. Effective communication requires words, more than anything. Entire businesses are run via email.
Larger meetings (more than, say, 10 people) I keep mine off but will turn on if I'm speaking or in an active discourse.
My employer/manager does not enforce cameras on, but my last one was trying to make cameras-on a requirement.
These days in-office meetings are worse because 90% of the time somebody's calling in and so everybody's pointed at the screen. It's like watching people watch TV. You lose out on the face to face-ness of virtual meetings and a lot the body language of live meetings.
But man one tiring thing about virtual meetings is that if you say something like "Uh-huh" or "Yeah!" in a virtual meeting the person stops and says, "Did you want to say something?" For some reason that doesn't happen as much in live meetings.
I usually do something else until it's my turn to speak at daily meeting so there is no reason to look like I'm not listening. I am .. just while doing something else.
I bet it's a company culture thing.
I'm an American, and no one where I work ever has their camera on, except by accident. It's almost a faux pas, like not being on mute: if someone has their camera, someone will mention it so they can turn it off.
Early in the pandemic, we had capacity issues with our then on-prem VPN, which I think prevented any pressure to have your camera on in a meeting. No one would want it anyway: very few even had profile pictures uploaded until some VP mandated it.
The only exception is higher-level managers giving large presentations.
Some meetings can be useless even at companies with efficient meeting cultures.
In fact don’t even open emails. Many of them are just spam and waste your time reading them.
In fact don’t even give out an email address, because it can fall into the wrong hands.
Instead, simply post on social media and have your team or an AI do all the work.
It’s what famous people do. The more people who want a piece of you the more you have to pull back!
But everyone’s busy so finding those 5min of high bandwidth time is hard. Let’s smear it through a whole 2 hours of low bandwidth communication instead. Make sure everyone’s maximally distracted the whole time trying to juggle 3 things. Perfect.
And use the precious screen real estate for productive screensharing and presenting documents !
Plus: make the window with the faces smaller. Especially when you only talk to 1-2 people.
So much more relaxing when you don’t have the feeling of someone being inappropriately close to your face.
I wish we could get your message to our leadership.
It's also easier to multitask, like if support asks for help, which is a much more demanding.
The whole point of a "stand-up meeting" is to keep it as short as possible (because standing up is uncomfortable). If you remove that it inevitably stretches into those hour-long meetings where no one can stay focused while everybody else gives super long updates and people find something else to do (not hard in your own environment) while waiting their turn.
The fix is to have a clear agenda and someone actively running the meeting to keep it on track, keep it moving, and push conversations that don't interest the larger group to subsequent smaller meetings or email.
You have to adjust for the lack of discomfort and social clues.
I highly recommend the book "The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance" [1] or, for a quick summary, the author's webinar "The Surprising Science of Meetings: Evidence-Based Insights Leaders Need to Gain a Competitive Advantage" [2].
It is not helped by the fact that only a small fraction of workers are good MCs.
Seriously? Drop the word "virtual". Nonproductive meetings bore people, whether virtual or physical.