Pixilated connection: how organisations can combat zoom fatigue in the home office

With the recent move to online spaces in response to the global pandemic, it is no surprise that work-from-home burnout is affecting more of us as we spend more time at our novel home offices. Dr Gleb Tsipursky, an expert on human behaviour and cognitive neuroscience, calls this phenomenon 'Zoom Fatigue'. He warns that, if not treated, work-from-home burnout could make the transition from the office to the home a nearly impossible one.

In an article published by Inc.com (May 2021), Dr Tsipursky suggested that the first thing organisations need to do to make this strategic shift is to gather information about their employee's challenges with working from home. Surveys, focus groups and personal interviews go a long way in gathering insight into employees' virtual work issues. This also allows employees and individuals to see the organisation as facilitating to create a safe, evolving workspace, instead of merely dropping individuals in the deep end of technological change.

With increased screen time, decreased in-person connections naturally result. The deprivation of our basic needs, sense of meaning, and human relationships taken for granted in the traditional workplace cannot be ignored any longer. Reminding employees to 'switch off’ and pay attention to their social needs is a step in the right direction to prevent overwork and overstress.

While the desire to connect with each other has not decreased with the pandemic, forcing our emotions to equate in-person connection to video conference screens is asking too much. The mismatch between the expectation of in-person relationships with the dissatisfaction of virtual meetings leads to an energy drain and, consequently, ' Zoom fatigue'.

Organisations need to actively dedicate time to developing new 'coffee breaks' to combat the dissatisfaction of losing these office room bonding sessions.

Digital co-working is also fundamental to healthy team building. For at least an hour a day, employees should log into video conference calls, comment or ask questions, or even just chat.

Attributed in part to organisations trying to move the work culture to the home environment, Dr Tsipursky warns that virtual communication cannot replace in-person connections, so we need to stop pretending that it can. Instead, organisations must make a determined effort to recognise the advantages of the home/ work environment instead of transferring the office mentality into the new workspace.