Zoombies: are we really working?

I have to admit to starting the week feeling rather despondent. As is normal these days, my Monday-Friday diary is crammed full of Zoom and Teams meetings. It could be worse: last week I ‘attended’ a full two-day video-conference board meeting. On the first day, our lunchbreak was just 15 minutes. By the end of the second I felt desperate for fresh air (it was so dark by then I ended up sticking my head out the back door). I couldn’t cope with the camera on all the time, disconcerted by the sight of my own face for hours on end (yes, I know it’s possible to switch that function off, but who doesn’t need to occasionally check lighting, camera angle, hair etc. – especially as the day wears on?). I didn’t dare leave my seat even for a moment – one colleague stepped away briefly but forgot to ‘lower her hand’ so was called upon repeatedly until we realised that she must have left her desk. My dog barked very loudly the exact moment I first took myself off mute (at least I’d remembered to unmute) - because the doorbell rang, creating a moment of light relief - for everyone else. 

Fortunately, my typical day is a little more varied and usually includes a one hour break at some point when I dash to the park for a blissful walk with the dog, but the rest is ‘back-to-backs’, often till 7pm. I’m getting up earlier to actually prepare for the meetings and doing catch-up 'real work' on the weekends. Ironically, I don’t even have a full-time job these days; if you add up the days I’m contractually committed to various organisations I should have plenty of free time. My experience of stretched-out working days is commonplace. Researchers at software company Atlassian looked at the online behaviour of users in 65 countries and found that working hours began to lengthen in March when most Western countries imposed lockdown. On average, the 60% or so of us who’ve been working from home since then worked an extra 30 minutes a day in April and May compared with January and February – and I suspect our working day has stretched further since then. The evidence (and chats with friends and colleagues) suggests we are working earlier and later, that we feel the pressure to be ‘always on, always now, always more’. Everyone says they are exhausted: we are all Zoombies now. 

The longer this goes on, the greater the impact on our mental and physical health and for the organisations we work for. At first, companies were rightly focused on the operational side of things and pleased to still be functioning. But now organisations big and small are starting to see the impact of many months of limited collaboration and fewer ‘random’ interactions between colleagues – the sort that build rapport, teamwork and sow the seed of that fresh idea. As has been widely discussed, it’s especially problematic for young people starting out who aren’t getting the benefit of those casual conversations, the impromptu masterclasses in how to navigate tricky conversations with the boss, and who have never met the colleagues whose help they need to get a tricky project done. These are well-documented problems; I’m increasingly also concerned about the cumulative impact on the oversight of companies from enforced virtual board meetings. In my experience, those meetings are as well-orchestrated as ever (if not more so), with good papers, well-prepared presenters and carefully constructed agendas. But the very nature of those long, exhausting video calls means we are missing the spontaneous discussions that tend to really probe, to get to the bottom of a nagging issue or take us down a side alley where the real insights start to form. A typical video board meeting will involve each director raising their ‘virtual hand’ and then being invited by the chair to contribute in order – leading to a ‘finger on the buzzer’ mentality - no one wants to be the eighth to comment when their point’s likely to already have been made and people are ready to move on. The presenter tends to respond to each point in turn, making for a stilted ‘conversation’. Such careful orchestration prevents us speaking over one other but means there’s little opportunity to bounce ideas around, to keep chatting about something that has not quite yet been worked through, to go back and forth, to come in on a colleague’s point and to build the discussion till the answer is found. It’s hard to ‘read the room’, to get a sense of the direction of travel of views, to pick up on the nuances. A couple of the organisations I’m involved with have had what might be called a ‘crisis’ this year (though that term is over-used in the corporate world) – posing an extra challenge. Such situations demand frank, honest, close-to-the-bone, all-hands-on-deck discussions. Zoom is not even close to being the right medium so the ‘real’ business ends up being done ‘offline’ through bilateral conversations, a long way from good corporate governance.  

This unsatisfactory experience is similar in other settings – school and university lessons are better on Zoom than not at all, but a poor relation to the real thing when there’s something really interesting for the class to discuss or a new concept to understand. A study by the Institute of Cancer Research has found that cancer breakthroughs are being missed because ‘light bulb moments’ between scientists are less likely in a Zoom setting. I may be lucky to contribute at all, but as a new member of the House of Lords, I can see there’s also little chance of proper parliamentary debate at the moment. Speakers in the Lords debates in the ‘hybrid’ House (a maximum of just thirty in the chamber) are time-limited and there’s no opportunity to correct or respond. I have spoken in the House three times since my introduction in September; my maiden speech was restricted to four minutes (I rehearsed over and over to squeeze in my thank-yous, my biography and my hopes as a new member of the House as is the convention – and then to actually contribute something to the debate). My second contribution was wrongly quoted later on and I had no chance to correct (even more gallingly, my opposer told me afterwards that she ‘knew I hadn’t said that’). And my third, a first for me via Zoom was a bit of a disaster; I spoke for five minutes rather than the allotted three and unfortunately the limited view from my laptop meant I was unaware just how much of a commotion this was causing. Keeping to time was clearly considered more important than the debate itself (which was over the latest coronavirus restrictions). With corporate governance and the democratic process under threat from Zoom, adding to our personal struggles with living virtually and with no real end in sight, we need to pause and consider ways to make things better. 

Just-released research by coaching and mentoring organisation, My Confidence Matters, provides some interesting insights into both the challenges and opportunities from our new ways of working. Yes, work is more exhausting and people feel they have lost the boundary between home and work. Yet a staggering 92% of both male and female respondents say their manager has become more empathetic during the pandemic – perhaps because everyone is experiencing difficulties. Both men and women want to continue doing some of their work from home when we do finally have a choice; 71% of men and 80% of women want flexibility longer-term and only a tiny fraction (7% and 3% respectively) want to return to the office fulltime. I moderated a discussion (via Zoom of course) to consider what actions could be taken to make home working better; the idea of a ‘Zoom break’ over lunch is promising (though challenging in global companies); the simple yet brave idea of sometimes saying ‘no’ to re-create that necessary boundary between home and work life is appealing. But as yet, no one has come up with a way to make those online board meetings, school lessons or debates less orchestrated, more spontaneous and more likely to get good results. (All ideas welcomed). In the meantime, let’s be aware that Zoom is a far-from-perfect replacement – and to press for the day when we can meet again.