Remote Meeting Fatigue: How Companies Can Help Employees

Remote Meeting Fatigue: How Companies Can Help Employees

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Long before the pandemic made its way onto the scene, meetings were becoming more and more a part of everyday office life. In fact, research shows that meetings have increased in both frequency and length over the last several decades—with senior managers expected to spend almost 23 hours in meetings every week!

So, what happened to all those meetings when companies moved to remote work in the wake of COVID-19? For many organizations, remote meetings (via Zoom, Google Hangouts, Microsoft Teams, or another virtual meeting platform) became the new norm. But simply transitioning every in-person meeting to an online environment—and even piling on more virtual meet-ups to “make up” for lost face-to-face time—may be negatively impacting your employees.

Recent research shows that virtual meeting fatigue is a very real phenomenon that’s taking its toll on remote workers everywhere. Here’s why it happens and what you can do to help your employees avoid it.

Your Brain on Meetings

Now that “Zoom” has become a verb, reports abound of employees feeling exhausted after virtual meetings. While it’s easy to blame the extra tiredness on extenuating circumstances (like the pandemic), it turns out that there’s a biological reason for this Zoom fatigue—and it all starts in the brain.

Microsoft set out to understand how the brain responds to remote versus in-person collaboration, and the study results are astounding. Electroencephalogram (EEG) monitors show that not only are brainwave patterns associated with overwork and stress much higher when teams collaborate remotely, but remote collaboration is more mentally challenging.

Researchers also found that the brainwave markers for stress and overwork are significantly higher when people are in video meetings than when they are engaged in non-meeting work (like writing emails). During video calls, gamma and beta waves that help with concentration, critical thinking, and information processing are more active. Alpha and theta waves, which are associated with restoration and relaxation, are lower.

Why Are Virtual Meetings So Tiring?

The good news is that understanding why remote meetings have such a tiring effect on the brain can help companies take steps to reduce the fatigue. Several factors contribute to video meeting fatigue.

Extended Focus

Keeping a continuous focus on the screen to get information while staying engaged is taxing, to say the least. Video meetings require higher levels of sustained concentration as the brain uses huge amounts of energy to take in everything in front of it. And with significantly more distractions—like different background visuals and sounds, more stimuli, and busy screens filled with multiple pictures—the brain has to work harder to focus on the task (and voice) at hand.

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Lack of Non-Verbal Cues

Humans have the amazing ability to communicate without talking. In fact, even infants synchronize their body movements with speech! We are hard-wired to pick up on nonverbal cues to take in information, which takes very little conscious effort. In an in-person meeting, the brain focuses not only on words, but also on body language, breathing patterns, and minute facial expressions to understand what’s going on, whose turn it is to speak, and if everyone is on the same page. Remote video meetings, however, provide much less access to non-verbal cues, so we have only words (and grainy video pictures) to parse out meaning. For the brain, this is cognitively very demanding.

Too Much Eye Contact

When interacting with others face-to-face in the “real” world, prolonged eye contact (also called the “constant gaze”) just inches away from another person is uncomfortable at best—and could even be considered threatening or overly intimate in some circumstances. In an in-person meeting, we can look around, use our peripheral vision to take in information, and look down at our notes, but we’re rarely staring into the presenter’s eyes. In a virtual video meeting, though, we have multiple people staring at us from the screen, which can be quite disconcerting. What’s more, studies show that large faces in video meetings can actually trigger our brain’s “fight or flight” response, leading to feelings of anxiety and exhaustion.

Gallery View Distraction

The popular gallery view on many video conferencing platforms may make it feel like everyone is together and collaborating, but the toll it takes on the brain is significant. Having to watch and “figure out” so many people at once is incredibly challenging to our brain’s central vision, and this constant multitasking leads to distraction, missing out on key information, and a feeling of being drained. And, many gallery views display a small picture of our own faces as well, which makes us hyper-aware of not only how we look, but how attentive we’re appearing and if our reactions are appropriate. The result? Brain fatigue from remote meetings.

8 Tips to Avoid Remote Meeting Fatigue

Whether your company is forever remote, is transitioning to a blended office, or will be back to in-person work post-pandemic, remote meetings are here to stay for the time being. So how, as an employer, do you keep your employees from expending so much energy trying to decode virtual meetings? These tips can keep your team collaborating without the brain drain.

1. Turn off Camera Feeds

Much of the fatigue associated with video meetings has to do with all of the visual information our brains have to filter through. Unless there’s a valid reason for having staff on video, consider turning off everyone’s camera feeds and just doing an audio call. People won’t be distracted staring at their own or other team members’ video displays, and can focus on what’s being discussed.

2. Add Buffers Between Meetings

For some of your employees, particularly those in management positions, daily remote meetings are a reality. Rather than scheduling meetings back to back, build in some buffers that will allow your staff to recharge before jumping into the next meeting. These brain breaks—which can be anything from a short stretching session to devoting several minutes to reading through emails—let the brain rest before having to jump back into the hard work of focusing.

3. Limit Meetings to 30 Minutes

Microsoft’s research shows that high levels of sustained concentration during video meetings leads to fatigue that sets in at about the 30-40 minute mark. If you want your employees’ undivided attention, keep meetings as short as possible. Use the 30 minutes to disseminate the most important information, then follow up (if necessary) by email or chat with relevant documents and other resources.

4. Punctuate Long Meetings With Breaks

Sometimes 30 minutes just isn’t enough…and that’s okay. For remote meetings that must go beyond an hour, schedule mini-breaks for staff to step away from their screens, grab a coffee, use the restroom, and otherwise let their brains unplug for a few minutes. Even if the breaks are small, they’ll allow everyone time to recharge before diving back in.

5. Keep Meetings Intentional

If your company has just recently become remote, you may be trying to compensate for lost in-person time with more (and more!) meetings, but this will likely drain your employees’ energy and make them feel burned out on the job. Really evaluate your needs and only schedule meetings with key takeaways that require synchronous communication. For everything else, email and shared documents are sufficient.

6. Establish Meeting Days

To encourage productivity and give your staff the most uninterrupted time to focus on their tasks throughout the week, schedule all meetings for one to two days per week. That way, employees can use their non-meeting days to work without distraction, unencumbered by the fatigue that sets in after remote meetings. Make sure, though, that these meeting days include significant breaks every two hours to allow for recharging (in addition to shorter breaks in between meetings).

7. Explore New Technologies

As remote work becomes the new normal, virtual meetings will take center stage more than ever. Fortunately, companies are recognizing the downsides to remote video collaboration and are taking steps to overcome a lot of the “non-verbal overload” that’s causing fatigue. Microsoft, for example, has created Together mode, which puts participants in a shared background to reduce distractions and create feelings of togetherness. Early results suggest that it takes less effort for the brain to participate in a meeting in Together mode than in traditional grid views.

8. Make Flexibility a Priority

During the pandemic, most of your team members are dealing with more responsibilities, stress, and fatigue than ever before. With increasing obligations and interruptions at both home and work, flexibility will go a long way toward easing the strain and supporting your employees. Rather than adhering to a rigid meeting schedule that makes demands on everyone’s time and energy, tune into your team’s needs and adjust accordingly.

Meet With Intention

There’s no doubt that meetings are an integral part of a company’s culture, collaboration, and communication. Finding the best way to meet while still preserving your team’s energy and productivity can be the key to remote work success.

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