Study finds remote workers can cut fatigue with simple workflow change

If you are one of the many people who now work from home than in the office, there is a good opportunity you get in the routine – and that you might find an extraordinarily tiring setting. Other studies have found what might be the cause of this fatigue and involve your webcam. Make simple changes in the way you use devices can, studies found, substantially reduce work fatigue.

Although many people report preferring work-from-home arrangements while going to the office, there is one aspect of this new era from a long distance job that is expressed by infliction: often, or continuous, on video calls. This phenomenon has been dubbed the ‘zoom exhaustion’ and several studies on this issue have been published.

Recent research comes from the University of Arizona; This research is published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, detailing the problem of fatigue fatigue and what if your webcam is turned on during a call can contribute to this problem. The study lasted four weeks and involved 103 people.

The researchers found that participants who were told to keep their cameras turn on more feelings of fatigue compared to the participants who were turned off by their cameraman. Not only that, but this research also found people who had their webcam turned on during the meeting tended to participate and talk during the meeting.

These findings challenge popular ideas that employees are more likely to be involved during meetings if their camera is turned on. Instead, this research suggests employers and their workers may benefit from giving each individual choice whether their camera will be activated during a call.

Without a camera, workers may not worry about how they are present to others during a call, allowing them to focus on the tasks faced rather than emphasizing what their coworkers are seeing. Of course, the other side of this is that employers may not assume their employees do not function simply because their cameras are disabled. Researchers behind the research, Allison Gabriel, explained:

There is always this assumption that if you have your camera during a meeting, you will be more engaged. But there are also many self-presentation pressures related to being on the camera. Has a professional and ready background, or keep the kids out of the room among some pressure.