15 Effective Ways For Remote Teams To Combat Zoom Fatigue

Phase 1 is the most common symptom group, while phases 2 and 3 are still relatively rare. However, the more noticeable the signs of mental fatigue become, the more urgent action is needed as if Zoom Fatigue is not counteracted early, it can quickly develop into full burnout. The symptoms can also be classified into different stages of zoom fatigue, based on severity and how long the employee has been experiencing the problem. Being able to stare at your own image is also a factor that isn’t present in usual meetings, and can make you painfully aware of your own behaviour, appearance and presence. This can cause you to zone out of meetings and focus instead on adjusting your own appearance, which can increase anxiety and decrease motivation and productivity. Employees who are confronted with too many video calls have been proven to tire faster, experience higher irritability and are consequently significantly less efficient.

If you have to take multiple virtual calls, try to space them out in your day by leaving at least 1-2 hours between meetings. You’ll be able to recharge remote working fatigue and give each call your full attention. Recovering from Zoom fatigue and burnout starts with re-adjusting your typical working methods.

Need a productivity nudge?

However, by recording your meetings, you will provide relief to your team by giving them a chance to choose which meetings to join. If a team member cannot attend a call, they can easily reference the recording. Not to mention, employees may be able to watch the meeting at one-and-a-half or two times speed or skip non-relevant portions to save on time.

The video conference epoch, in which many people remain more sedentary than if they were in the office, may also be leading to more permanent consequences. Ask your team what they perceive and feel are becoming stress factors among them. Together with your employees and the help of the above tips, you can develop a strategy to keep Zoom Fatigue at bay and make your collaboration more pleasant and sustainable for everyone involved.

Beat Distraction by Mastering Time Blocking

You can re-organize your grid or invite staff into a “Together” mode meeting on Teams to change things up. If this tells us anything, it’s that students – at least at the collegiate level – very much prefer real classrooms to Zoom meeting rooms. Knowing that many are now working remotely, we can assume that these feelings are shared across the board. While more research is needed, an article published in Technology, Mind, and Behavior in 2021 suggested four possible causes of Zoom fatigue.

It can be uncomfortable to feel someone looking at you so closely. Your brain may interpret all of these circumstances as a threat, which will raise tension. Video is the go-to way to engage in a meaningful meeting with plenty of context. Video offers a similar https://remotemode.net/ experience to face-to-face contact, which means that many companies are using it to replace virtually every conversation they might have in person. If you’re just checking up on your colleague, or sending some information, use a messaging platform instead.

Staying within the camera frame reduces mobility.

The Zoom fatigue definition, therefore, is a state of mental exhaustion caused by frequent zoom conferences. Of course, you could just as easily call it Teams, Hangouts, or Skype Fatigue, as this severe mental exhaustion can be brought on by overusing any of these popular video call tools. Gestures could also mean different things in a video meeting context. A sidelong glance to someone during an in-person meeting means something very different than a person on a video chat grid looking off-screen to their child who just walked into their home office.

Blog Stay up to date with Shift and read about the world of work in our blog, updated weekly. The Week Ahead The weekly email that gives you everything you need to know about the world of work. Nowadays we all are missing this, I often miss this while working from home. Talking and meeting face to face is not only exchanging expressions, it also shares the values of each other and in every office culture we often see few rituals in the office. Verywell Mind uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles.

Looking at our own face is boring and stressing

If being camera-ready five days a week is making you anxious, consider picking one day each week where you either don’t schedule any meetings or don’t turn on your camera. Besides, we often have to share a glimpse of that personal space with the meeting participants. That’s why minor interruptions to our meetings, like a toddler screaming or a spouse grabbing something from a wardrobe behind you, can cause stress and anxiety. External cameras create space between you and the lens to take notes, doodle, eat a snack, sit, stand, stretch—everything you’d ordinarily do in person.