18 Zoom Fatigue Solutions for Remote Work
Video is a lighthearted, interactive means of communicating otherwise stale PTO policies and what vacation time can and should be used for. Our newsletter includes everything you need to build a happy, healthy and effecitve remote team. In the fall of 2021, 45% of US full-time employees were working from home and benefiting from eliminating their commute, reducing the stress of being in the office, and having more time with their families.
Record meetings
- While you physically distance yourself from others, remember to connect in other ways.
- Video is a lighthearted, interactive means of communicating otherwise stale PTO policies and what vacation time can and should be used for.
- Maintaining a well-lit workplace can help uplift employees during the workday.
- Setting boundaries is vital in all aspects of life, and the workplace is no exception.
- You can also get injured if you’re not paying full attention to what you’re doing because you’re stressed.
- 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.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of efforts to address WFH burnout try to treat the symptoms without addressing the root causes. The fundamental root cause of WFH burnout stems from organizations adapting their existing ways of interacting in “office culture” to remote work. To defeat WFH burnout, organizations need to understand the reality of the problems leading to WFH burnout to survive and thrive in our new world. Otherwise, using office-style culture to conduct virtual work is simply forcing a square peg into a round hole, leading many staff to burn out.
On that day, encourage every person in your organization to do whatever they need to do for self-care. Your energy is like money; you’ve got a finite amount of it at any given time. Create a spreadsheet to track your well-being, with columns for debits and credits.
If it’s not, let team members know that turning their cameras on is completely optional. You can also encourage using email updates when meeting live isn’t necessary. WFH burnout can also manifest in physical symptoms like headaches, stomach aches, or changes in sleep pattern that include insomnia, or on the other side of the spectrum, chronic fatigue. For individuals who typically experience anxiety or depression, these symptoms may be exacerbated, or show up for the first time. But unless you are a television personality, it turns out being online constantly is exhausting. Psychologists suggest that Zoom fatigue may come from the intensity of being hyper-focused while attempting to constantly process non-verbal communication from other meeting attendees.
Managing work-from-home burnout is part of being a good team member
It may seem hard to get up from your desk at first, but you’ll find that your head becomes much clearer after a walk and work becomes easier too. Your self-care should be scheduled at the start of your day, just like any other important work task. In fact, Morris suggests that you treat the time taken for daily self-care remote work fatigue like an essential meeting.
As a result, 69% of remote workers are experiencing burnout symptoms due to being overworked, having no sense of work life balance, and feeling unsupported. Free from office distractions and interruptions, remote workers tend to be more focused and productive. However, when completing higher quantities of work, employees can also get sick of these duties much faster. Work from home burnout can be a result of boredom from doing repetitive tasks. This possibility is especially likely when the employee performs a single function on a loop all day.
Prevention of professional burnout
Employees may stare at the computer screen all day when working remotely. Another way to combat Zoom fatigue is by completely turning off your camera and joining with audio only. As a general rule, video calls should be reserved for important meetings, such as team touchpoints and key project kick-offs.
In traditional workspaces, coworkers travel between offices and common rooms, whereas telecommuters may work in the same spot all day. However, that is not to say that all 8 hours of the work day must be spent in the same spot, staring at the screen the whole time. Workers who need time away from a laptop or desktop can seek out offline activities. For example, organizing a swag-stash, meeting a prospective client for coffee, helping with a company philanthropy event, or attending an industry event or in-person training. It may be worthwhile to ask your employer for permission to swap out online to-dos for these real-world tasks.
Although you may feel inclined to say yes to every work request and assignment, you should know that it is okay to say no sometimes. To beat the fatigue that comes with multiple Zoom meetings, we recommend attending only the sessions that benefit you. When organizing meetings, we recommend considering your team’s time by exploring different options for effective communication.
External stressors are the things outside of you that drive burnout from working from home. They’re things like deadlines, work situations that create stress, or even non-work stressors, like family life. In addition, the employer should control and not overload employees.
It’s important to stop, take care of yourself, and refill your pitcher. Work will still be there when you return to it after a period of rest, but remember — you are a finite resource. The most important thing a company can do, says Morris, is practice kindness. If a company doesn’t prioritize kindness, it becomes difficult for workers to be kind to themselves. You can’t expect workers to practice self-care if the organization doesn’t encourage a culture of self-care. This also means leaders should be practicing self-care for themselves, and modeling what self-care looks like for their teams.