WFH | Almost 4 in 10 remote staff drained by virtual meetings

Lockdown has necessitated huge changes to the normal working day. Pre-pandemic, meetings, chat-ups and townhalls were all largely a physical interaction but now the onus has been placed on companies such as Zoom and Microsoft’s Teams platform to digitally bridge the gap.

However, likely due to the steep drop off in physical interaction, it seems that such meetings are not only taking place regularly but are swiftly multiplying in volume.

This is corroborated by a new study from Doodle which found that the increase in digital meetings that the average worker must now attend leaves 38% feeling exhausted by the end of the week, whilst 30% said that this huge volume of communication, and the time it detracts from working hours, makes them far more stressed.

However, the news isn’t all negative. Doodle’s research, which polled over 1,100 full-time workers, also found that despite the negative impact on mental health, remote meetings have given 63% of workers greater clarity on their roles – mainly because of the ability to record meetings and re-watch them at a later date.