The Case for Cameras

If you're a remote worker and you like being a remote worker, turn your damn camera on.

Senior leadership teams all over are calling for a return to the office. Some companies are forcing a 3 day return, others are pushing for full time returns. Big names, too. Amazon. JPMorgan Chase. Washington Post. Tesla. Zoom. Uber. Disney. Goldman Sachs. And just recently, the United States Federal Government.

My company doesn't have a mandate. I like that about them. I go in three days a week, usually. Some days I go in four. Last week, I went in one.

I sure like that flexibility. I'd like to keep it.

For the companies that haven't (yet) issued mandates, I bet lots of people would love to keep it that way.

Listen, I'm not here to get into a Holy War about whether there is more value to working remote than in-office work. Po-tay-to, po-tah-to. They both have advantages and disadvantages.

But here's the thing - if you you are remote and want to stay that way, you should be doing everything in your power to minimize the disadvantages of remote working in your company. Read that again.

Turn your damn cameras on!

We can close some of that gap of being far flung. People can get to know their coworkers, customers, and suppliers by more than just name. By face. They can interact with expressions and body language and even hand-gestures. (Not that one! If you absolutely have to, turn your camera off for 30 seconds, gesture, then turn it back on. OK?)

Cameras make a difference. They really do. We struggle to read someone - especially early in the relationship - who has their camera off. In that model, we are building one-dimensional rapport, if any, and it will take so much longer to achieve anything approaching trust or camraderie or respect.

Plus, there are people like me who are hearing-impaired. If I can't see your face while you are speaking, especially if the audio quality isn't great, I won't be able to hear you, even with my hearing aids in. And if you have an accent, a camera off, and bad audio? Well, I'm doomed. I might as well nip out for a coffee. (Also? I'm annoyed.)

There are others who have different issues from my hearing ones and could benefit from visual communication. Some people just aren't great at picking up voice-cues and might do better if they could also see expressions and body language. With no camera, someone feeling passionate may come across as angry (happens to the best of us) but with their camera on, the bright eyes and excited grin may be all the cues a recipient needs to see to surmise there is no anger, only enthusiasm.

Frankly, I'm flabbergasted that business partners - suppliers and consultants - show up in virtual meetings without turning their cameras on. That's shocking to me. They need the rapport and trust more than most because they're selling something. They receive training on influence and customer-relationship-management and yet, so often, I am part of meetings where they can't even bother to show up with cameras on. Doesn't seem professional to me.

I believe in the power of face-to-face. I believe that trust is important for successful collaboration. When I talk about trust at work, I don't mean "Will you babysit my kids" trust, or "I saw you flirting with that waitress" trust. I'm talking about "Can you carry your weight in this project?" and "Will you show up when you say you will show up?" and "Are you an expert at the job you are doing?" Those things require trust, and the trust people have in you directly correlates to the opportunities you are given.

Can it be built remotely? Yes, but that can take months - even years. Furthermore, trust can erode even after it's established. We can all probably think of examples of someone we previously admired who seemed to go dark after COVID lockdown and kind of never came back and we lost that trust. We're over here wondering "What happened to Marty? He used to be so good at his job!" Maybe nothing really happened to Marty. Maybe trust eroded because Marty doesn't show up how he used to - in the office - and hasn't replaced that showing up with turning his camera on in order to be more easily seen and heard.

Turn your damn cameras on!

I have this theory that if people had more readily grasped the voluntary return to office, perhaps the mandate wouldn't have come at some of these companies. If leadership saw desks and conference rooms filled every Wednesday and saw people in the breakroom getting coffee and catching up on Tuesdays and Thursdays, maybe - just maybe - everyone would have continued enjoying the flexibility and freedom to work from home the other days of the week.

Y'all, I'm not a decision maker about return to work, but I'm an observer, and I'm also in leadership. The more people don't show up, either in the office or in the meetings they attend remotely, the more those decision makers are going to feel pressed to do something about it.

Turn your damn cameras on!

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Linda Metzler has opinions. Ho-boy, does she. Mostly, she has learned to bite her tongue 'til it's bloody, or do the electronic version of that - sit on her hands, but sometimes her hands are an unstoppable force that escape their bonds and her opinions find their way out into the world through her keyboard.

This is one such time.

She knows a bunch of people aren't going to like her opinion, and welcomes the discourse on the topic, but requests that it be kept respectful so she doesn't cry.

Linda's opinions do not reflect the opinion of her employer. (Except maybe they do?? If I was a betting woman, I'd say they probably aren't too far off...)

Linda doesn't ask much of you, but she would really like it if you would turn your damn cameras on. OK?