Avoid Zoom Fatigue While Working From Home is a Common Issue for WFH Employees

Perhaps some of your meeting fatigue is due to grief sapping you of your energy. Maybe it’s hard to see your coworkers on-screen but not be able to hang out with them in person. It takes great effort to put on a smiling face and pretend you’re fine when you aren’t. Coming to terms with what we’ve lost is a healthy way to move forward.

how to avoid zoom fatigue while working from home

Taneasha White is a Black, queer lover of words, inquisition, and community, and has used her role within both literary and organizational spaces to make room for folks who are often cast aside. You can find her work in Prism, Well + Good, Rewire News Group, Black Youth Project, them., and more. Your friends and family understand the pressure you’re under, and you all can agree to have grace for each other. One hard part about Zoom meetings is the expectation of professionalism. There are always going to be meetings that you can’t get out of attending, but there are also ones that you can most definitely pass on (or watch a recording of later). And then there are the random Slack calls that sometimes pop up, unannounced.

Educate your employees about needs-deprivations

Maybe stacking all your mandatory Zoom meetings at the beginning of the week works best for you. If you have any control over your scheduling, aim to figure out what works best for your schedule and for your mental health. There can be a lot of pressure to commit to every meeting and task due to the false equivalence of being at home meaning “not working,” but we all know that’s not the case. “When engaging in such interaction, folx need to create the illusion of eye contact while also mentally processing their verbal communication,” Jagoo says. While video calls have made our lives easy and convenient, they are not without their disadvantages. And while many office workers love to complain about their pesky coworkers, nagging boss, and stuffy cubicle—the truth is, some people miss how things used to be.

It’s 10/10 important to establish healthy meeting habits while you’re working to arrange everything else remotely. Dressing up for the occasion is one of the first few things that can help your zoom fatigue because of the activeness and energy it brings on board. Drop https://remotemode.net/ your sleepwear for a day, and dress up as you would for an office, and you will feel the change. Zoom fatigue could continue to plague remote workers, especially women and people of color, depending on the choices that companies make to prevent it, says Ratan.

Work and personal life have collided.

That will enable your organization to survive and thrive in the post-pandemic world. Long working hours can push a healthy person towards burn out, regardless of him working from home. If you’re having a struggle to stick to the meeting schedule, try to use a shared agenda. Ask HR to send our feedback survey on the maximum time for a video call.

  • Many questions remain about the psychological impacts of teleworking and connecting with others through video conferences.
  • It turns out 14 percent of women reported feeling very to extremely fatigued, compared to 5.5 percent for men, said Fauville, co-author of the study.
  • Video conferencing tools have become the default platforms for socially distanced human interaction, especially for many people who once worked in offices.
  • For example, a video call requires you to remain in one position for the entirety of the meeting.
  • For external calls, avoid defaulting to video, especially if you don’t know each other well.

Zoom meetings are draining our energy and these video calls are giving us unhealthy amounts of stress and anxiety. Video calls day on day whether on Zoom, Microsoft Teams or remote working fatigue Skype, have given rise to a phenomenon called ‘Zoom fatigue’. Zoom fatigue is a term for the physical and mental exhaustion caused by constant video calls and conferencing.

signs of decision fatigue (and how to defog your brain)

For better or worse, video calls (and working from home) aren’t going anywhere. Fortunately, there are things you can do to take back some control and not feel so drained after a Zoom meeting. On top of the usual work-related stress, the pandemic has caused just about everyone’s mental health to take a dip.