The struggle is real! How do you tackle zoom fatigue?
Video conferencing is now an integral part of our working lives, fundamentally transforming the employee experience of millions of Australians.
While this new normal comes with many benefits (most specifically around flexibility and all the opportunities that unlocks), alongside more sinister impacts. There is growing research to suggest that we may be facing a rise in burnout rates amongst workers, and the rapid increase in digital conferencing is a contributing factor.
In fact, four in ten remote workers suffer from a sense of physical and mental exhaustion as a result of prolonged screen time. Even more concerning – this trend appears to be disproportionately impacting female workers.
We wanted to know why, so we had a chat with our resident expert, Psychologist and Head of Advisory Nick Tucker to learn more about the four main contributors to Zoom fatigue (According to Stanford University) and how to nip them in the bud.
The intensity of excessive eye contact
During in person meetings we tend to take notes, witness presentations or gather around a white board, meaning the duration of eye contact is broken up across the meeting time. On a zoom call that intensity amplifies as we each sit face to face with our colleagues .In one-on-one video meetings, that close face to face contact triggers our brain to anticipate an intense situation and can induce a state of hyper-arousal. Professor Jeremy Bailenson of Stanford University's Virtual Human Interaction Lab says this is because you are seeing the other person’s face at a size and personal space that is usually reserved for moments of deep intimacy. Awkward!
Increased self scrutiny as a result of mirror imaging
With remote working, many of us are seeing ourselves in the ‘mirror’ for many hours a day. That increased self scrutiny is both exhausting, and confronting. Imagine if someone followed you around all day with a mirror - so that when you caught the bus, picked up a coffee, navigated relationship tensions or talked a loved one through a challenging time, you were watching yourself at every moment. That’s what we are experiencing in video calls, our attention is split between visually processing our own self view and cognitively engaging in the conversation at hand.
The expectation to stay ‘in view’ reduces mobility
Solvitur ambulando is a Latin phrase meaning “it is solved by walking”. Human beings evolved on our feet, but with screen interaction increasing, our movements are decreasing. On a video call, movement is limited in a way that is contrary to our national behaviour: a user is fixed to a frame of vision, which reduces the natural mobility that comes with walking to a colleagues desk, a meeting room or even just moving around while on a phone call.
A higher cognitive load through reduced/changed non-verbal cues
In regular human interaction we process non-verbal cues subconsciously. But with the shift to video based communication, many of these cues have to be consciously prepared and processed. You’re ensuring your own head is correctly framed in the screen and to show agreement you might perform an exaggerated nod or thumbs up for example. The usual cues that allow you to intercept or share during a pause in speech are harder to decipher, as is the engagement of other participants when you’re in the driver's seat. Professor Bailenson explains that ultimately, all of these conscious actions use mental calories to communicate (a distinctly finite resource).
It’s time to find creative solutions
At We Are Unity, we’re always looking for ways to support employee engagement and wellbeing - so we asked our team how we could help reduce their digital load and curtail that end-of-week exhaustion.
Client Advisor, Nicola stepped up to the plate with a fresh idea: VC free Fridays. For a full day each fortnight we are turning off our cameras in favour of a good old fashioned phone call, and encouraging our clients to do the same when they engage with our team.
Our first #VCfreefriday meant having the courage to ask clients to consider a different way of meeting for the day - and we were met with an overwhelmingly positive response from staff and clients alike.
Finding creative solutions means testing and learning what works for you and your team. Get started with these five tips by our Organisational Psychologist and Management Consultant Nick Tucker:
Manage your energy: Block time in your diary that enables you to re-energise and focus your work.
Seek time in nature: Reconnecting with nature is critical to managing burnout. Find opportunities to take walking meetings in your local area (legally of course).
Revert to university timings: Think about starting all your meetings at 5 mins past the hour. We don’t all have to be a slave to our calendar’s default settings!
Quiet your inner critic: Manage your inner critic's self-scrutiny and improve focus during video calls by taking yourself out of the equation and removing or minimising the ‘self view’ from your VCs
Break it up: Get creative and explore alternatives to break up your working week. For example, before booking yet another VC, ask if you can resolve it with a simple phone call.
Lockdown or no lockdown - videoconferencing is here to stay. Creative solutions will be the key to tackling the challenges we face (like zoom fatigue) efficiently and effectively. Once you find what works for your unique culture, be sure to operationalise its adoption into ways of working so that everyone can thrive, regardless of if they are working in the office, at home or anywhere in between.
If you’re interested to learn more about our work on culture transformation and optimising the employee experience, get in touch with our team at hello@weareunity.com.