https://www-forbes-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.forbes.com/sites/edwardsegal/2022/04/13/lack-of-engagement-by-remote-workers-can-lead-to-their-early-termination-new-study/amp/ Essentially, This article is investigating a study that indicates that executives believe that off-camera/muted employees are slacking off, and are therefore underperformers, without any other kind of outcome-based evidence. Now, I’ll be the first to admit that if my camera is off I’m probably playing video games, but I tend to think this is an unfair generalization… some people just really don’t like having their cameras on, or feel too shy to speak up during certain meetings. I also tend to think that different roles require different levels of “soft” engagement (like you don’t have to be the most social/meeting driven person to be a great engineer). What are everyone’s thoughts on this? *Some other tidbits from the article: According to the results of a study released yesterday, 92% of U.S. executives said that employees who work remotely and frequently mute themselves or don’t appear on camera during virtual meetings “probably don’t have a long-term future at their companies.” 96% of executives said employees who primarily work virtually are at a disadvantage over those who work mostly in a brick-and mortar-office. 94% said remote employees were less connected and have fewer opportunities within the company than their office-working counterparts. Executives view the lack of employee engagement as a sign of subpar performance to come: 93% of executives said employees who turn their camera off are generally less engaged in their work overall. The lack of engagement opens the door to executives making assumptions about the behavior of employees. More than 2 in 5 executives (43%) suspected that those who are on mute or off-camera all the time are browsing the internet or social media, texting or chatting (40%). Link to the original study: https://go.vyopta.com/vyopta_wakefield_survey_22 TC - 450k Happiness - meh
Pretty compelling statistics. I’m usually camera on, but on long meetings that I’m not very vocal in, it’s hard to stay staring at a monitor when I could be more productive otherwise.
Study was sponsored by employers forcing RTO.
Paid for by companies that own real estate and need employees in offices.
When I'm watching porn during meetings you know my camera is off.
A huge part of being an executive is literally just socializing and forming "connections", so yeah it makes sense that they view folks who are not socializing as less valuable. That's the framework they operate in. If my camera is off in a meeting (not common) and I'm muted the whole time, it's because I'm only in that meeting just in case something relevant to me or my team comes up. When i have something valuable to say I'll jump in. Executives are used to *always* speaking at least once to demonstrate that they provided value to a meeting, even if they didn't. It's a, need to justify that they were there. My 2 cents 🤷♂️
I sometimes run large zooms with say: 50 people in it. They're presentations and are actually important. Attendance is also voluntary. You can see who's engaged and who's totally checked out at the end. When I conclude and say thank you everybody, I watch the number of attendees reduce. And there is always a group of about seven or so people with their camera off who stay on the zoom. Why? Because of course they logged in, turned off their camera, and walked away. We're all technically phoning it in now, but some people are assholes about it. Some people are basically doing Morse code at this stage.
It's about perception. There is a reason why people are rushing back to the office. When recession hits expect more of that
Horse shit