By scheduling minutes and other talking points, your meetings will run effortlessly while also limiting everyone’s virtual time to prevent communication fatigue. (Representative image)

Working from home comes with its sets of challenges for employees. The term ‘communication fatigue’ is being used a lot these days, with people having to connect via digital communication platforms and jump from one video conference call to another. Bhavin Turakhia, founder & CEO, Flock (a proprietary messaging and collaboration tool), highlights four ways one can prevent virtual communication fatigue while working remotely, in an interaction with Sudhir Chowdhary. Excerpts:

Virtual time off
In order to combat virtual communication fatigue that comes with a busy virtual meeting schedule, the cure is as simple as scheduling breaks during the day. Taking breaks at regular intervals will help you to recharge before the next call appointment and allow for extra planning so the next interaction goes as effortlessly as the last one. An effective break should include moving around to get your blood flowing and introduce a change of scenery. Talk to your family members, quickly whip up a salad or just take a power nap.

Create an itinerary for every video call
As much as everyone loves to hear all about each other’s lockdown life, too much talk can cause meetings to go longer than planned. To prevent this, create an itinerary ahead of time. By scheduling minutes and other talking points, your meetings will run effortlessly while also limiting everyone’s virtual time to prevent communication fatigue.

Block your front camera view
One of the biggest contributors to video call fatigue is keeping the self-view feature open during meetings. To prevent any sort of communication fatigue from self-view, simply turn off the camera feature whenever you’re not presenting or not expected to talk. If you’re worried about how you’ll look on camera, open up your camera app before a meeting to make any last-minute adjustments, test the lighting, or make a quick location change. If closing the self-view isn’t possible on the platform you’re using, you can block it off by taping a piece of paper.

Notification fatigue
Notification overload can have unfavourable effects on effective decision-making and collaboration of employees. Employees must not necessarily be expected to respond to all the messages they receive each day unless it’s extremely important. On the other hand, for managers, they can set up a general rule that quick questions are posed via messenger, but bigger issues that require more thinking/strategising time are sent via email. Set timelines so that people know when a response is needed and follow up on critical questions after a set amount of time.