Five ways to beat zoom fatigue

There’s a new phenomenon on the block called ‘zoom fatigue’ and it’s spreading pretty quickly. 

A couple of years ago, video calls were well known in business, but the Covid-19 pandemic has forced dramatic changes. 

People who work from home are now on more video calls than ever before, but too much of this will cause a drop in productivity, and the inevitable rise in ‘zoom fatigue’.

So, how can we combat zoom fatigue? Well, in true Asda for Business style we’ve put together five ways to help you and your staff overcome it.

 

1) Schedule breaks

Plan your day the evening before so that you don’t find yourself in back-to-back zoom meetings.

The commute to the office before Covid-19, and the walk at lunch to the local shop or around the town centre probably helped more than we all realised. It’s likely that we now do both far less – so get that walk, run or cycle in, and make sure that a zoom meeting doesn’t disrupt it.

 

2) Introduce the 20-20-20 rule

Use the 20-20-20 rule for your eyes. For every 20 minutes you spend looking at a screen, take 20 seconds to look at something 20 feet away. The practice which has been developed by an optometrist in California is designed to relax and ease the eye muscles.

 

3) Make meetings shorter

Can you get through what’s required in 30 minutes rather than taking a whole hour? A face-to-face meeting can be a challenge if it’s too long, and a zoom meeting that is lengthy will have a similar impact. Try to keep meetings as short and to the point as possible and only discuss matters that need addressing. Which leads us nicely onto point number four.

 

4) Create a meeting agenda

Create the agenda if you’re the host and share it with everyone before the meeting starts. This way, everyone knows what will be talked about. It also looks professional and shows the other attendees how serious you are taking the meeting, and that you have done sufficient preparation. 

 

5) Turn the self-camera off

With face-to-face meetings, you can see your colleagues. On zoom calls, you may be able to see yourself as well, which can heighten anxiety and stress in some people, make it difficult to relax, and eventually become exhausting. 

You can make your appearance and background look professional but check with the other attendees beforehand to see if it’s absolutely necessary that you all appear in vision. The audio-only option puts less pressure on body language during meetings.

 

In such strange times, why not reward your staff and give them something to look forward to after their zoom calls have ended. 

An Asda gift card or e-gift card is a great employee benefit, reward or incentive and can be used however your staff wish. 

It could be a meal, weekly shop, clothes or homeware. In fact, rewarding employees with an Asda corporate pre-loaded gift card, lets them choose from thousands of products. There are more employee gifts than you can imagine. Not only that but our gift cards and e-gift cards can now be redeemed at groceries.asda.com as well as in any one of our 600 stores—and online at George.com.

So give them an Asda corporate gift card for a one-stop-shop that lets them get whatever they want – and lets you say it so much better.