Zoom fatigue is real, and sometimes the only solace virtual workers have is conducting meetings without the pressure of being visible on camera. No harm, no foul, right?
Wrong.
New data shows that more than 90% of employers think that those who go off camera during meetings won’t last long at their company.
Vytopa recently released the results of a study on the challenges of hybrid work and the ways employees and companies each own the responsibility for making remote work successful. Conducted by Wakefield Research, the study surveyed 200 U.S. executives at companies of 500 or more employees between March 9 and March 17.
It turns out that business executives take facetime very seriously among their subordinates. They think showing your face is a direct correlative of high engagement. In fact, the survey says that 92% of U.S. executives report employees who are less engaged, either frequently on mute or don’t turn on their camera during virtual meetings, probably don’t have a long-term future at their company.
Executives view the lack of employee engagement as a sign of subpar performance to come: 93% of executives say employees who turn their camera off are generally less engaged in their work overall. What’s even more interesting is that more than 2 in 5 (44%) strongly agree with this.
As a result, the lack of engagement opens the door to executives making negative assumptions about employee behavior. More than 2 in 5 executives (43%) suspect that employees who are on mute or off-camera entirely are browsing the internet or social media, texting or chatting (40%).
Wow.
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