'Always-on' culture | CPO admits she is 'Zoomed out'

‘Zoom fatigue’ is a term that has been thrown about regularly since employees have started to work from home. The term refers to feelings of burnout or tiredness due to having to be ‘on’ all the time throughout the working day, while taking part in video calls.

It also references the video software Zoom as this is the most popular choice to carry out meetings online, however, it also includes any form of video call, whether it takes place on WhatsApp, Slack or Microsoft Teams.

And it seems that the high volume of video calls is starting to effect employees. In fact, research from Myna recently revealed that almost half of homeworkers are suffering from Zoom fatigue, meanwhile a study commissioned by Bayfields Opticians & Audiologists found that people are spending an average of three hours and 12 minutes each week on video calls – an increase of 120% compared to before lockdown.

This has amounted to an estimated 56 unproductive working hours per employee since lockdown begun, which equates to 862million hours of ‘wasted’ time over the last 22 weeks.