00:00Your 2 o'clock Zoom meeting just wrapped up 2 minutes late, giving you no time to get a glass of water before logging back in for your 3 p.m. one-on-one.
00:09Then you need to prepare for a virtual brainstorm session at 4.
00:13Sound familiar?
00:15Chances are you feel completely drained after a day of virtual meetings, and your team probably does too.
00:22Zoom fatigue isn't just anecdotal, and it's not limited to that platform.
00:26It's a neurological reality that's persisted well beyond the pandemic.
00:31In fact, one-third of professionals still have up to 4 meetings daily using videoconferencing platforms.
00:38But is there anything leaders can do to reduce this burden on their teams?
00:43Professor Owen Whelan of the University of Galway has investigated this phenomenon at the physiological level.
00:56His team monitored brain and cardiac activity during virtual meetings and also during face-to-face meetings.
01:03They found that participants in virtual meetings showed significant increases in brainwave activities that correlate with mental fatigue compared to participants in face-to-face meetings.
01:16Even more interesting, they discovered that simply seeing your own image during meetings, a default feature on most of these platforms, increases the brain's fatigue response.
01:28The good news? Not all remote meetings have to be exhausting.
01:32Professor Whelan suggests several ways that leaders can significantly reduce virtual meeting fatigue by setting some new norms and expectations.
01:42First, consider making audio-only meetings an acceptable option, especially when visuals aren't essential.
01:49The research shows these meetings actually allow participants to focus more on content and reduce the cognitive load.
01:55There's also a bonus. Audio-only meetings enable participants to walk while they talk.
02:02And that light physical activity can leave people feeling more energized afterward rather than depleted.
02:08Second, encourage your team to turn off self-view during video meetings.
02:13Constantly monitoring your own appearance creates an additional cognitive burden that saps focus and energy.
02:20Third, standardize on a single virtual meeting platform whenever possible, especially for internal meetings.
02:27The neurological research is clear.
02:29Cask-switching between platforms like Zoom, Teams, and WebEx is a hidden energy drain.
02:35Even for tech-savvy employees familiar with multiple platforms, the constant adjustment creates measurable mental fatigue.
02:42While meetings with people outside your organization may require using a different platform, keeping internal meetings standardized can significantly reduce the cognitive load.
02:54Finally, encourage your team to get comfortable with exploring these virtual meeting platforms and experimenting with settings and features that may make interacting with others online feel more natural.
03:04It's a way of reclaiming agency and adapting the technology to the person rather than the other way around.
03:12Hybrid work isn't going anywhere, but that doesn't mean we have to accept Zoom fatigue as inevitable.
03:18By encouraging thoughtful approaches to remote meetings, you can help your team stay more positive, engaged, and energized throughout their workday.
03:28To learn more about mitigating virtual meeting fatigue, read the full article from Dr. Whelan and his team,
03:35Virtual Meetings and Your Brain, Four Ways to Refresh, on the MIT Sloan Management Review website.
03:41And for more research-based videos from our authors, check out this curated playlist.
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