As we continue to navigate the world of remote work, it’s become clear that one of the biggest challenges businesses and employees face is ‘meeting fatigue’. The number of virtual meetings people are expected to attend on a daily basis is leaving employees feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. 

This is, to some extent, a result of the dramatic shift in the way we work following the pandemic, a change that happened practically overnight. Remote work has risen significantly in recent years, and with it so has the number of virtual meetings. 

While that’s not to say that people didn’t spend a lot of time in meetings before COVID, the medium in which many of those meetings are taking place has changed. Rather than running from one conference room to the next, people are scrambling for the right Zoom links. 

The apparent need for multiple people to come together and collaborate, discuss the progress of projects, and overcome obstacles remains the same. In fact, the number of meetings people attended every day increased as workplaces went completely remote during the peak of the pandemic, a trend that will likely continue as remote work rises. 

According to the “Future Workforce Pulse Report” by Upwork, 36.2 million Americans will be working remotely by 2025 — that’s a 90% increase from pre-pandemic levels and 22% of the entire American workforce.

This creates a new problem that organizations need to address as too many meetings can lead to burnout, reduced productivity, and decreased health and wellness among employees. That’s why it’s important to understand what meeting fatigue is, why it’s harmful, and most importantly, how to combat it. 

In this article, we’ll give you a step-by-step guide to replace meetings and help you fight meeting fatigue so you can be more productive and focused at work.

What is meeting fatigue?

So what is virtual meeting fatigue’?…

When remote work became more common, many people saw it as a great opportunity to do their job with greater flexibility and find a better balance between their personal lives and work. However, as remote working grew in popularity, it brought with it a new set of challenges, including virtual meeting fatigue. 

With virtual meetings becoming the primary means of communication, many people started experiencing an increase in the number of meetings they were expected to attend every day. Then, COVID-19 hit and remote work became the new normal. 

This sudden shift intensified the issue of meeting fatigue, as people found themselves dealing with a whole new set of challenges, such as increased isolation, distractions at home, and blurred boundaries between work and personal time. As a result, many people started to feel overwhelmed and burned out from the constant stream of virtual meetings.

What meeting fatigue really is

Meeting fatigue — as well as ‘Zoom fatigue’ or ‘virtual fatigue’ — is the feeling of exhaustion and burnout that comes from attending in-person and virtual meetings for extended periods of time. It’s the result of the constant mental and emotional strain that comes from being “on” for hours on end, which can be exacerbated by the physical toll of consistently staring at a screen.

Think about it: when you’re in a virtual meeting, you’re expected to maintain focus, pay attention to what’s being said, and actively participate in the conversation. This can be especially challenging if you’re not in the same room as the other attendees, as it can be harder to read body language and gauge social cues. 

Furthermore, the lack of physical movement during a virtual meeting can make it easy to feel stagnant and restless, which can further contribute to feelings of fatigue. All these factors can take a significant toll on your mental, emotional, and physical health, which naturally impacts productivity and effectiveness in the workplace – even if that’s your kitchen table!  

With all this in mind, it’s important to recognize the signs in order to know how to combat virtual meeting fatigue.

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How do you recognize meeting fatigue?

Recognizing the primary Zoom fatigue symptoms, in both yourself and others, is the first step in taking action before it affects the well-being and productivity of you or your colleagues.

Here are a few common symptoms of meeting fatigue that people can experience:

1. Exhaustion: Feeling tired and drained after attending virtual meetings, even if they are not particularly long or intense, can be a sign of meeting fatigue. This can also include feeling mentally and emotionally drained, as well as physically fatigued.
   
2. Forgetfulness and trouble concentrating: If you find it challenging to focus during virtual meetings, you may be experiencing meeting fatigue. This can manifest as a lack of interest in the topic being discussed or difficulty staying engaged throughout the meeting.
   
3. Difficulty maintaining relationships and being present: If you’ve been on calls and in meetings all day, you can be forgiven for wanting some time to yourself. However, if you’re frequently feeling distant from friends and family, it could be a sign of meeting fatigue.
   
4. Irritability or restlessness: Meeting fatigue can also make you feel restless and irritable. During virtual meetings, you may find yourself fidgeting or struggling to stay still, and outside of meetings, you could find yourself easily irritated by your co-workers.
   
5. A decline in productivity: If you notice a decline in your productivity or the quality of your work after attending virtual meetings, it could be a sign of Zoom fatigue. This can happen if you are feeling overwhelmed or burnt out from attending too many meetings or if the meetings themselves aren’t engaging or productive.
   
6. Physical symptoms: With what is one of the more serious symptoms, meeting fatigue can even lead you to suffer actual physical aches and pains such as muscle pain, tension, and insomnia.

If you’re experiencing any of these symptoms, it may be time to take a break and reevaluate your approach to virtual meetings. By recognizing the signs of meeting fatigue early on, you can take steps to prevent it from impacting your work and overall well-being, and that of your employees.

Why do we schedule so many meetings?

Despite a growing consensus that meetings kill productivity, there’s still an underlying belief that meetings are the best way to communicate and collaborate with colleagues. 

Here are the facts:  Meetings  provide an opportunity to discuss complex issues, share ideas, and receive feedback in real-time, which can be difficult to achieve through email.Such interactions are crucial to supporting collaboration and creativity among teams.

So while there’s no doubt that we need meetings — because the best meetings are actually pretty great — the question is, do we need so many of them? And more importantly, what actually warrants having a meeting? 

We believe that some businesses need to shift their understanding of when meetings do and don’t need to take place. 

For example, if a discussion needs the input of multiple people, such as a brainstorming session, then a meeting is definitely the best way to get results. However, if a meeting is merely going to be a one-way transferral of information (rather than a collaborative effort), then you can often achieve the same result, in less time, with a well-made video. 

By reevaluating when a meeting is and isn’t necessary, businesses could literally save billions of dollars every year. Yes, billions! 

A study on meeting overload by Atlassian, found that 45% of employees feel overwhelmed by the number of meetings in their schedule and 47% say unnecessary meetings are the number one time-waster in the workplace. It’s also important to remember that a one-hour meeting with 10 people, doesn’t cost just one hour – it costs 10 hours of company time. 

Atlassian’s report found that the average employee wastes 31 hours in unproductive meetings each month. Now multiply that by the number of staff in your business (and try not to scream). 

It doesn’t take long for all this time to add up as Atlassian estimates that US businesses waste $37bn every year on unnecessary meetings. It’s high time that businesses found a better and more productive way for staff to use company time. 

So, why are we still scheduling so many meetings? Truth be told, we’re not sure. These days, there are much more efficient ways of communicating and we’ll take a look at some examples in a moment.

Why is it harmful to the individual and the organization?

While meetings are already costing businesses a fortune, the context of virtual meetings can add additional layers of complexity for both individuals and organizations. 

By their very nature, virtual meetings are unnatural. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing and we’d argue it’s much better to have a virtual meeting with people across the globe than it is for everyone to fly around the world for a meeting. But the technology is relatively new and we, as humans, are still adapting to it. 

While we already know that staring at a computer screen for too long isn’t good for you, when it comes to having meetings online, there are similar factors that can contribute to meeting burnout. 

This goes beyond the technical aspects and the effects of things like blue light, as there’s also a significant difference in how we interact with people online and the mental toll of doing so. 

So let’s take a look at some of the factors unique to virtual meetings that can contribute to meeting fatigue. 

Excessive amounts of close-up eye contact is highly intense

In a normal meeting, you’ll likely switch your attention between the people speaking, the people listening, your notes, and your surroundings. However, on a Zoom call, you’re looking at everyone, everywhere, all at once – and it’s intense! 

This intensity is heightened by the unusually large size of people’s faces, and their eyes, on your screen, which makes them appear to be physically closer than they really are. It’s not often that we get so close to people’s faces, and when we do it’s usually the result of an intimate moment or a confrontation, which are both emotionally intense situations. 

Our brains are hard-wired to know this instinctively, so all that close-up eye contact during a virtual meeting is a lot more intense than we often realize. 

Seeing yourself during video chats constantly in real-time is fatiguing

You’ve got to admit that when you’re not looking at everyone else in a virtual meeting, you’re probably looking at yourself. It’s okay, we all do it, but seeing your digital reflection multiple times in a day is emotionally taxing. 

Studies suggest that you’re more critical of yourself when you can see yourself. It makes sense, but constantly glancing at your real-time selfie only adds to the fatigue of virtual meetings.

Video chats dramatically reduce our usual mobility

With in-person meetings, you’ll often find yourself moving from one conference room to another – but you are still moving your body. With virtual meetings, you’re much less likely to get up and walk around if all you need to do is click a link. 

While there’s already plenty of research that suggests sitting for prolonged periods of time is bad for your health, there’s growing research to suggest cognitive performance is enhanced when you’re moving about. On the other hand, virtual meetings will likely keep you sitting in the same position for a long time, which could make you feel restless. 

The cognitive load is much higher in video chats

A lot of body language is involved when you’re talking to someone in person, and every small gesture or expression someone makes during a conversation is crucial to how we, as humans, naturally communicate. 

Body language helps us understand each other while ensuring we are being understood. However, these small nonverbal cues and nuances are much harder to detect on a video call, which often leads to us paying more attention than we’re accustomed to in a conversation. 

Even knowing this about ourselves works to increase the fatigue we feel, as we subconsciously put more effort into making our own body language clearer to the people we’re virtually speaking to. 

Having to work harder to send and receive the non-verbal signals that we rely on only adds to the cognitive load of having a virtual meeting, and it’s a unique pressure that doesn’t apply to in-person conversations.

Step-by-step guide to replace meetings [Meeting Detox Playbook]

Now, with an almost overwhelming amount of evidence that shows the negative impacts of having too many meetings and the cost of meeting fatigue, let’s take a look at some of the ways we can cut down on meetings and relieve the symptoms of meeting burnout. 

In this section, we’re going to give some step-by-step guidance on how tools like Snagit can help achieve the same goals as the meetings blocking out your schedule, a kind of Meeting Detox Playbook, if you will. 

Step 1: Identify the goals/objectives of your meeting and whether you can replace or enhance it

One of the key areas that everyone can work on to reduce the number of meetings they’re expected to attend is to understand when a meeting is actually necessary, because a lot of the time — and we know you’ll agree — they’re not. 

The first and most vital question to ask yourself before calling your team into the conference room, or sending out a virtual calendar invitation, is: What’s the meeting for and do you need people’s input? If not, then you can probably move forward and share your progress via email. 

On the other hand, if you do need to discuss a project before moving on to the next stage, it’s important to consider whether you have enough information that will enable you and your colleagues to make a decision. You also need to anticipate whether there will be a lot of questions or discussion around the issue, if not then maybe the conversation can happen over email. 

There are a few other considerations to take into account when it comes to knowing whether to schedule a meeting or not. To simplify the process, we’ve put together a simple flowchart to help you.

When a meeting isn’t necessary, Snagit is great for facilitating quick, easy, and effective internal communications. For example, one-on-one project feedback can be simplified with a screencast made with Snagit. Similarly, informal training sessions can be quickly turned into training videos. 

Even better, by providing videos rather than scheduling a meeting, you’re giving people the opportunity to act on, or learn, something at a time and pace that best suits them, which can really help enhance distanced learning. 

With Snagit, you can also enrich proposals, presentations, and brainstorming with the help of visual and video aids. Visual communication is absolutely key when conveying ideas and information between people as it helps provide additional context and makes concepts easier to digest.

In fact, TechSmith found that businesses that include visuals as part of their internal communications can even save money!

Step 2: Record your video! (in Snagit, of course!)

With Snagit, you don’t have to be Martin Scorsese to make a video. Whether it’s an educational video or simply a desktop recording, Snagit is a simple and intuitive tool that makes it easy for anyone to record and share great video content.

In fact, the kind of videos that Snagit is perfect for can usually be quite informal and done in one take. That said, there are a couple of tips that are worth keeping in mind the next time you make a video with Snagit: 

• Keep videos short and sweet. Before you record, write down a couple of bullet points of what you want to cover so you don’t forget anything.
  
• Include your webcam. Snagit’s picture-in-picture feature lets you record your screen and your webcam at the same time, which will help your audience pick up on the very important non-verbal cues (like facial expressions) that we discussed earlier.
  
• Be clear. The screen draw function in Snagit allows you to highlight important information on your screen to help direct your viewer’s gaze and focus. 

With these three simple tips, not only will you be able to quickly and simply get your point across to a number of people, but those people can refer back to your videos if they ever need a reminder. 

Step 3: Share your video wherever the conversation is happening.

As well as being able to easily record a video, it’s important to have tools that make it equally as easy to share with your team. Fortunately, Snagit offers a range of sharing options that make it easy to send your content via several platforms, including Slack and Outlook. 

On top of this, Snagit’s Share Link button sends your content to Screencast, allowing viewers to comment and react. This flexibility in sharing options provides a more efficient and streamlined experience for both you and your audience.

As well as having the tools to make sharing easy, there are some best practices that can optimize the viewing and learning experience for your audience. For example, it’s always worth providing the length of a video when sharing, so that the viewer can better manage their time and allocate the necessary amount to engage with your content effectively.

Moreover, setting clear expectations on how and when you expect a response to your video can help ensure that the communication remains productive and focused.

Tips for running efficient meetings

No matter how much you manage to cut down on the meetings in your schedule, they’re still going to be a necessary part of working, because as we said before, meetings can be great when they’re done properly. But that right there is the key: doing meetings properly. 

So, if you are 100% confident that scheduling a meeting is the best way to move forward with a project or task, be sure to keep these meeting tips in mind: 

Avoid multitasking

As tempting as it might be to send or reply to an email while in a virtual meeting, what you should really be doing is focusing on the task at hand. We understand the desire for wanting to do as much as possible in the least amount of time, but research shows that multitasking, and switching between tasks, can actually cost as much as 40% of your productive time. 

Next time you’re in a virtual meeting, close any tabs that might distract you and try turning off your email and chat notifications. And if you do see an email, remember that it can probably wait 10-15 minutes.

Keep meetings short

Try to keep the runtime of a meeting as short as possible, and be clear (and strict) in setting and sticking to an agenda. The longer a meeting goes on, the more bored and less invested people will be in the discussion – which ultimately leads to meeting fatigue. 

Meetings usually overrun when new questions come up and conversations veer off-topic. This is where “The Parking Lot Technique” can be useful, which essentially dictates that any new topics or questions raised in a meeting (that weren’t on the agenda) are put in the “parking lot” to be discussed at another time. It’s incredibly simple, but it will do a lot to keep meetings on track.

Reduce onscreen stimuli

We’ve already talked about how there’s a lot going on in virtual meetings. With multiple faces (including your own) and backgrounds to look at, it’s easy for your brain to become overstimulated, which adds to virtual meeting fatigue. 

Fortunately, preventing this is also pretty easy as you (and your colleagues) can simply reduce what’s on your screen. One of the easiest ways to do this is to try hiding your own camera from your screen, which will really help with reducing the effects of virtual meeting fatigue. 

You could even suggest everyone turns off their webcam when they’re not speaking as this will help keep all attendees focused. 

Encourage attendees to use a simple background 

To take stimuli reduction a step further, try getting everyone in the meeting to blur their backgrounds. It’s a small and simple step that can have a big impact on combating fatigue. 

It will also ensure nobody is tempted to try and figure out the titles on everyone else’s bookshelf! These tiny details all add up when your brain tries to process every visual detail in the meeting room – it’s both distracting and intense! 

Switch to phone calls or email

If you’re feeling a little Zoomed-out, there’s a good chance the people you’re set to meet with are as well – especially if it’s late in the afternoon, towards the end of the week. 

With this in mind, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with suggesting a phone call, especially if you’re only meeting one other person. By sending a polite and friendly email ahead of the meeting asking to have a phone call instead, you could be reducing meeting fatigue for both of you. 

They’ll probably be just as relieved to get your email as you will be when they reply: “Yes, of course!”

Meeting fatigue FAQs

The emergency shift to remote work in 2020 was hectic for many businesses. With no time to thoughtfully develop new processes and norms, many companies relied on new apps and tools to stay connected as a distributed workforce.

According to a survey from Okta, companies deployed 89 apps on average in 2021, up from 58 in 2015. And employees are feeling the consequences, with app overload leading to less productivity and even burnout.

Even with workers having dozens of apps at their fingertips each day, when we asked Snagit customers what their “desert island” workplace tools are, a few apps rose to the top across various industries and roles. 

In this post, you’ll learn:

• The true cost of tech fatigue in your organization
• Simple ways to prevent app overload
• What tools and apps employees can’t go without

The cost of using too many apps for communication and collaboration at work

While there are obvious financial costs associated with workplace technology, not finding the right balance of tools can impact your organization beyond budgets.

Misunderstandings or confusion

Too many apps can cause misunderstandings or create confusion within your company, primarily when employees use multiple tools that serve similar functions. 

When information becomes scattered across multiple apps, it’s easier for people to receive conflicting information or even miss an important message altogether. 

It can be even more complicated when teams or departments within a company use different apps to share information. 

Let’s say you’re working on a design project, and a stakeholder shares a critical change to the specifications in a Teams chat. However, the designer on your team is checking their email for updates and misses the message in Teams. 

The next time the team regroups, the designer is confused about why the stakeholder isn’t happy with their work and frustrated they didn’t have the correct information. 

Reduced productivity and wasted time

Do you have days where you work on many different tasks but don’t actually complete anything on your to-do list?

You can blame context switching, or the tendency to shift between one task to an unrelated task, for that lack of productivity. 

When we’re using too many apps at work, we can find ourselves spending more time toggling between windows than actually getting our work done.

According to a Ring Central survey, employees waste about an hour each day switching between different apps. 

Plus, each of those apps comes with its own set of notifications that make it more challenging to focus on a single task. 

Employee disengagement and burnout

According to The Anatomy of Work Index, more than one-third of workers feel overwhelmed by the persistent ping of notifications.

When you also consider how app overload unintentionally creates a fragmented, confusing work environment, it’s easy to see how employees could become stressed.

According to a survey from FlexJobs, more than three-quarters of respondents say workplace stress affects their mental health, which can lead to disengagement or burnout. 

How to combat app overload

The good news is there are several ways to help prevent app overload and its consequences.

Audit the tools you have

Start by taking stock of the apps you’re using and the specific business outcomes they support. Evaluating your company’s current tools will help identify redundancies or gaps in workflows to address.

Don’t forget to keep your organization’s most critical goals in mind when deciding which apps are essential and which you should let go of. 

If your company handles complex projects with many moving parts, it probably doesn’t make sense to get rid of your project management app.

Use the tools you have to the fullest

A study from WalkMe found that only half of the enterprises surveyed believe they realize the full potential of the apps at their disposal. 

Before deploying a new app, evaluate whether one of the tools you already have meets that need first. 

Look into features you’re not currently using or other pricing tiers to see if upgrading a current app is a better fit. You might find investing in an app your employees already use more cost-effective in the long run.

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Streamline processes

We usually don’t add tools or apps to our workplace tech stack just for fun. The goal is to give employees the tools they need to do their job effectively.

So, creating uniform processes across teams and departments can also help reduce app overload and prevent redundant work or information silos. 

Let’s say the human resources team at your company uses Asana to keep track of their work, but the finance team uses Trello for the same purpose. Of course, there are added costs associated with the redundancy, but it can also make workflows unnecessarily complicated.

Especially when those teams need to collaborate on a project, it can lead to conflicting information or additional steps to get everyone on the same page.

Listen to your employees

When adding or removing tools from your workplace tech stack, remember to collect feedback from those who use them every day.

Asking employees for their opinions about the functionality or usefulness of an app can help you get a better idea of its overall effectiveness. 

You may discover that the features one team likes about OneDrive are the same reasons another team can’t live without Google Docs, allowing a smoother transition if you choose one app over the other. 

The top workplace tools, according to employees

To find out what tools professionals across various industries are finding success with today, we asked Snagit customers one question, “If you had to choose five software tools to continue to use in the workplace today, which would you choose?”*

Across industries and roles, the top five tools were:

1. Snagit
2. Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint)
3. Outlook
4. Zoom
5. Microsoft Teams

Snagit is a powerful screen capture tool that allows you to use images and videos to share ideas, give feedback, and communicate more effectively. 

It’s incredibly easy to use and ranks on G2’s list of Best Software Products for 2023.

Snagit is one of those applications that you need to have “always on” ready to go. It is such a productive tool for learning, presentation development, and idea generation.

Derek T. via G2

Building the optimal tech stack for hybrid and remote work requires thoughtful evaluation of the tools your teams use daily. Leveraging a quality-over-quantity approach to apps can help you communicate more effectively, increase productivity, and keep employees engaged.

As employees return to the office, companies embracing hybrid work arrangements face a challenge: proximity bias. 

In hybrid work environments, proximity bias could lead to the incorrect assumption that those working in the office are more productive than their remote teammates. 

Managers and employees alike are concerned about the effects of proximity bias and hybrid work. In fact:

• Two in five employees are worried that less face-to-face time with company leadership will negatively impact their career growth
• 41 percent of executives say potential inequities between remote and in-office employees are their top concern
• A study found remote workers were less likely to be promoted than their in-office colleagues, despite being 15 percent more productive

At the same time, hybrid work is the new norm. Most employees favor a hybrid work model, so forcing everyone back to the office isn’t the solution. 

That’s why it’s more important than ever to be aware of proximity bias and make sure everyone on your team feels included. 

The good news is that managers and employees alike can take steps to avoid proximity bias in the workplace. 

Here’s what we’ll cover in this post: 

• How proximity influences our perception of colleagues
• Examples of proximity bias in a hybrid workplace
• What managers and leaders can do to prevent proximity bias
• How employees can be more visible when working remotely
• The secret to making hybrid work “work”

How proximity influences our perception of colleagues

Our brains take shortcuts all the time, using processes to simplify the information around us to make more efficient decisions. 

But sometimes, our brains misinterpret that information, and it affects the accuracy of our judgments. In the case of proximity bias, our brains overvalue what is around us and undervalue what isn’t. 

If left unchecked, proximity bias can create a company culture where in-office employees are rewarded for their presence with resources and promotions while their remote counterparts are left behind.

Examples of proximity bias in the workplace

Proximity bias can show up in both big and small ways. Here are a few examples of proximity bias in the workplace:

• Offering in-person employees more exciting projects or professional development opportunities
• Leaving remote stakeholders out of decision-making or important discussions
• Providing in-person employees with more perks

While bias is often unconscious, knowing how proximity influences your decisions can help you recognize and overcome it. 

What managers and leaders can do to prevent proximity bias

The reality of the hybrid model is that we have to adapt to new ways of collaborating. 

Remote team members cannot be an afterthought. Successful hybrid leaders set up processes that allow employees to flourish regardless of where or when they work. 

Adopt a remote-first approach to communication

When everyone isn’t working in the office simultaneously (or at all), key decisions can’t be made at the water cooler. 

Adopting a remote-first approach to how your team communicates will help prevent people from feeling left in the dark when working from home.

That means when one person is remote, everyone is remote. Digital and asynchronous forms of communication should be the default method, regardless of an employee’s location.

Make sure discussions about projects and tasks happen in a digital messaging app like Slack or Teams, where all relevant team members can contribute and benefit from the conversation. 

It’s not just remote employees who benefit. Remote-first, asynchronous communication will: 

• Enable employees to take time off without feeling like they’re falling behind
• Allow new employees to get up to speed more quickly
• Archive information in a way employees can reference at any time

Ready to embrace asynchronous communication?

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Stop relying on real-time meetings

When your team works across locations and time zones, relying on synchronous communication can be frustrating and unfair. Schedules and location can prevent everyone from being able to participate fully. 

If you’re like most office workers, you probably feel like you waste a lot of time in meetings anyway. Here’s the sign you need to take back your calendar. 

It’s important that you don’t have the people who are in the office vs. the people who aren’t in the office. The more that we can use these tools and communication methods to level the playing field, the better everything is going to be.

– Michelle Massey, Vice President of Community and Customer Operations at TechSmith

There are several types of meetings that are almost always better in an asynchronous format: 

• Status updates
• Project demos
• Data shareouts
• Informal training

Anytime you’re scheduling a meeting to share information, consider recording a video instead. 

Let’s say you want to share results from a recent marketing campaign with your team. If you were in a Zoom meeting, you’d probably share your screen to walk through a dashboard and provide context around the results.

With a screen capture tool like Snagit, you can accomplish the same thing in less time without interrupting your team’s day for yet another meeting or leaving someone out.

In just a few minutes, you can create a quick video that your team can watch on their own time (and even at 1.5x speed). Snagit can even simultaneously record your screen and camera, replicating the “face-to-face” feeling of an in-person or virtual meeting. 

Of course, there will be times when meeting in real time makes the most sense. There are a few things you can do to help level the playing field for remote team members:

• Have everyone call into virtual meetings individually to prevent in-person side conversations
• Make sure everyone has the equipment they need, like cameras, microphones, or bandwidth, to be fully present
• Record the meeting so those who cannot attend can watch it later

Measure employee performance by output

In a typical office environment, employees can try to impress by being the first person at their desk in the morning and the last one to leave at the end of the day. 

But focusing on hours worked as an indicator of performance can leave your team feeling pressured to be “always on” when working from home to make up for their lack of physical presence.

Instead, shift your mindset to focus less on time spent in the office or online and more on the quality and quantity of work your employees produce. 

Be intentional about checking in

When working in the same physical space as an employee, you naturally have more opportunities to observe their work, offer feedback, and recognize their success. 

To effectively manage a hybrid team, you have to be intentional about how you connect or risk in-person employees receiving preferential treatment. 

Start by keeping track of when and how you engage with your team, both in-person and virtually, and identify disparities. 

You might find that you offer feedback more frequently when working in the office. If that’s the case, employees who are remote full-time may miss out on opportunities to improve their work. 

Incorporating virtual forms of feedback into your communication could help level the playing field for fully remote employees.

How employees can be more visible when working remotely

It’s no secret that flexible, hybrid, and remote work can feel isolating. More than half of people who started working remotely during the COVID-19 pandemic feel less connected to their coworkers. 

But, if you’re proactive, you can still make meaningful connections with your colleagues and establish a presence on your team while working away from the office.

Turn your camera on during virtual meetings

Many people don’t enjoy being on camera, and “Zoom fatigue” is a real phenomenon. However, video conferencing can help us feel connected even when we’re not in the same place.

When you’re on camera, it’s easier to establish a sense of presence and a shared sense of being together even though we may be physically separated from across the globe.

— Diana Howles, author of Next Level Virtual Training: Advance Your Facilitation

When you’re on camera during a meeting, your colleagues can see your nonverbal behaviors and better understand who you are and what you’re saying. 

Turning on your camera will help people get to know you better and allow you to communicate more effectively. Research has even shown video conferencing can create perceived proximity.

To avoid video burnout, pace yourself and take breaks as needed. Identify which meetings you’ll benefit most from being on camera, and when it might make sense to step away.

Turning off the “self-view” option once you have established yourself in the frame during a meeting can also help relieve camera fatigue.

Stop relying on text-based communication

Asynchronous communication is essential for keeping hybrid and distributed teams on the same page, but it can sometimes feel less than human.

That’s because we often default to text-based ways of sharing information when research shows most people understand information better when it’s communicated visually. 

The next time you’re about to send a mile-long email, consider if a video message could be more effective. 

Suppose you’re providing feedback on a project. Text-based communication can easily lead to misunderstandings. But, when your teammates can hear your voice and see your face, they’re less likely to need clarification. 

Even better, with Snagit, you can record your screen and draw attention to the areas of a project needing attention with arrows and callouts while you walk through your feedback.

What could have been a boring or confusing email thread can be transformed into an opportunity for communication that feels more like the face-to-face interactions you might have in an office environment. 

Ask for advice

Proximity bias can put remote workers at a disadvantage when it comes to professional development.

For example, when leadership teams are working primarily in the office, in-person employees may be more likely to be top of mind when new opportunities arise. 

While your company is hopefully taking steps to address proximity bias already, you can help move your career forward by proactively seeking advice and mentorship from others at your company.

We often avoid reaching out to others for advice because we are afraid we might be bothering them or appear incompetent. 

However, studies show that asking for advice facilitates meaningful connections with our colleagues and also helps us make a positive impression on our mentors.

The secret to making hybrid work “work” is effective communication

Many of us have spent most of our professional careers working in an office space. It will take time to unlearn habits that no longer make sense and replace them with new ways of working.

Embracing asynchronous communication tools like Snagit will transform the way we work for the better.

Move work forward from anywhere with Snagit

From creating video messages to annotated screenshots, Snagit is an essential toolf or hybrid teams.

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As the norm for workplaces continues to shift and change, teams oriented around one shared space have become less “the standard” and more “one of the recognized options” for a successful workplace setup. More and more, companies have begun to employ remote workers, offer hybrid working situations, and lead teams that are distributed in countless ways.

These developments have reinvented the way we think about work and as they have continued to evolve, some unprecedented communication challenges have reared their heads. “The office” has evolved from a common space between 4 walls with easy access to all employees simultaneously, to an uncontained global space spanning multiple timezones and complicated availability differences.

Having a team distributed in this way can make it difficult to arrange meetings and opportunities for collaboration, but it also holds the benefits of extended operating hours and daily coverage. With those advantages to a remote workforce, mandatory meetings might suddenly seem less necessary than they once did.

For effective communication and collaboration with a distributed team, leaders will need to weigh various communication options and consider both synchronous and asynchronous communication methods.  

You may be wondering what asynchronous and synchronous communication even means and how you can best incorporate each of them to lead your remote team well. If that’s the case, you’re in the right place – in this article, you will find an overview of each type of communication, as well as helpful examples and best practices so you can figure out which could work best for your team in different scenarios.

What is synchronous communication?

Let’s start with synchronous communication. What are its pros and cons? What does it look like in action? What exactly is synchronous communication and what are the best practices to use when engaging in it? Let’s dive in. 

Synchronous communication, a definition

Synchronous communication is the exchange of information between 2 or more people in real-time. It may be in person but it certainly doesn’t have to be. In addition to in-person conversations or meetings, phone calls and video meetings are also examples of synchronous communication.   

There are many situations in which synchronous communication will be your best choice – these include, but are not limited to

• Discussions of sensitive projects or issues
• Providing critical feedback
• Brainstorming or conversations with a lot of unknowns
• Project kickoffs or other instances where everyone needs to be quickly brought up to speed or a lot of dynamic variables need to be shared
• Rapport needs to be built 
• A crisis has happened and immediate attention is required

Examples of synchronous communication

In-person meeting

In-person meetings are great opportunities to churn up new ideas and solutions to complex problems.

Phone call

A phone call can get a decision made quickly and doesn’t necessarily need to be scheduled ahead of time. 

Video conference (i.e., via Zoom, WebEx, Slack, etc)

When the team works remotely but the benefit of reading facial expressions and body language is required, a video conference is a great choice.

Asking the teammate across your desk a quick question 

Walking over to a teammate to get an answer can be much faster than scrolling through a process document.

Coffee break conversations

Conversations at break time can generate innovative ideas without the pressure of being in a formal meeting.

Advantages of synchronous communication

Synchronous communication is a natural way of communicating for humans. Because of this, it can have some significant benefits and advantages in the workplace and has been the default form of communication historically.  

Deeper interactions

Synchronous communication gives the opportunity to have deeper interactions with your team. Activities like brainstorming and solving in-depth problems collaboratively benefit from the ability to speak together, read body language, and give and receive real-time feedback.

Get resolutions in real time

With synchronous communication there is no need to wait in order to get a problem solved. Unlike with asynchronous communication, where projects can sometimes come to a halt while awaiting answers, production time can be maximized by this advantage of synchronous communication.

Disadvantages of synchronous communication

Of course along with the advantages come a few disadvantages as well.

Focus is disrupted

Although it does feel easier to talk in real time most often, it can be quite disruptive to your focus. When someone pops by your desk or pings you on Slack for a quick response, the task you were in the middle of can suffer – not to mention you may not be giving 100% of your focus to the conversation that’s been entered into.

Difficult for people in different timezones

Depending on how spread-out your team is, synchronous communication can cause problems with work-life balance and result in burnout because of timezone differences. The optimal time for one person may be the middle of the night for another and if synchronous communication is the expectation that won’t be overly effective.

Synchronous communication best practices for remote teams

In order for your team to work together efficiently, they need to understand how synchronous communication can best be used to reach their desired outcomes. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind when you and your team need to use synchronous communication in your work together so that it can be as positively impactful as possible.

1. Keep a small number of participants

Whether you are engaging in synchronous communication in person or using phone or video calling, the conversation should be kept to a small group. With too many participants, the discussion can become confusing and unfocused. Inviting fewer participants and ensuring each understands their role can reduce the confusion and help maintain focus.  

2. Always record the meeting

Recording your meeting can be an effective way to ensure content doesn’t get misremembered and talking points can be clarified. Many calling and video calling platforms have built-in recording functions which makes this an easy task to take on.

Some other benefits are a reduced need for note-taking and the ability to share the meeting’s content with team members who could not attend. Just be sure to advise all attendees that the meeting is being recorded prior to getting started.

3. Create an agenda and stick to it

Whether you’re running a meeting virtually or in person an important task to complete before the meeting even starts is to draft an agenda. In the agenda, make sure to identify the goals of the meeting and any questions that will need to be answered.

It is important as well to consult with other team members about the agenda so that their needs related to the project/task in question can be considered as well – the goal here is a productive meeting for everyone. You’ll want to make sure everyone has a copy of the agenda and that it is strictly adhered to for maximum efficiency. 

4. Get familiar with the tools

Constant changes and developments in technology have led to a video conferencing market that has a variety of options available. Each of these has a unique set of features which may include polls, screen sharing, chat functions, and various audio and video permission settings.

Your team members should be encouraged to get to know these features for the system you use in order to make synchronous virtual communication most efficient.  

5. Always send follow-ups afterward

Following all meetings or phone conversations it is important to send a quick follow-up message to everyone who was in attendance. The message should thank them for attending and note any key takeaways, decisions, or outcomes of the meeting. You can send this by email, direct group message, or via an update in your project management system. 

What is asynchronous communication?

Now that we’ve covered synchronous communication, let’s dig into the pros and cons of asynchronous communication, and look at some examples and best practices.  

Asynchronous communication, a definition

Asynchronous communication refers to any kind of communication where there is a delay between when a message is sent and when the person on the other end receives and interprets it. It is usually not an in-person type of communication and is rarely scheduled. 

Asynchronous communication works best when:

• An immediate answer isn’t necessary
• Collaboration needs to happen with teammates across different time zones 
• You want to offer context before or after a real-time event
• A complex concept or task needs to be explained and documented for later reference
• Communication flexibility is beneficial or important to your teammates
• Message storage could act as a resource for other team members

Examples of asynchronous communication

Email

Emails can help you advise or seek input from individuals or groups without interrupting their flow of work.

Letters or direct mail 

For those who resist digitization, direct mail can be a great communication option. 

Project management tools 

Project Management tools like Trello and Asana can keep communication closely tied to the project it relates to.

Text messaging 

Quick and informal communication can be easily shared using a text message.

Direct messaging

Tools like Teams and Slack can keep work communication compartmentalized in a way that is customized to your team.

Video recordings 

Snagit and Camtasia are incredible tools for creating and sharing highly effective and easily created video recordings to communicate with your team.  And they each have a free trial offer!

Asynchronous meetings

In an asynchronous meeting, individuals add talking points and comments in a shared digital space when it is convenient for their schedules.

Advantages of asynchronous communication

Similar to synchronous communication, there are pros and cons to asynchronous methods of communication as well. Let’s check them out: 

More flexibility

One key advantage to asynchronous communication is the flexibility it offers. The reduction in pressure to respond immediately often results in better responses and happier, less stressed team members.

Better for timezones

Asynchronous communication works really well for remote teams that cross various timezones. Messages can be delivered and received at the ideal times for each individual involved.

Disadvantages of asynchronous communication

As you may expect, there are also some disadvantages to asynchronous communication. 

No sense of immediacy

Most managers appreciate a sense of urgency to the work of their team and asynchronous communication can get in the way of this. Because of the lag in response times, there can be delays in progress and inefficient use of time.

People feel disconnected

Asynchronous communication needs to be very clear and detailed, and it moves at a much slower pace. This can create feelings of disconnection because of the dissimilarity to a natural flow of conversation.

Asynchronous communication best practices for remote teams

When working on a remote, distributed team, the use of asynchronous communication methods like email and collaborative project management tools can make it easy to connect despite differences in time and availability across the organization. 

1. Take inventory of how your team members spend their time

With a reported 252% increase in meetings since early 2020, there is a notable reduction in the amount of time spent actually completing tasks. With that knowledge under your belt, it’s clear to see that efficiencies and increased opportunities for focused time need to be a priority. Performing an audit on how time is being spent can provide insight into where asynchronous methods of communication, like emails and providing updates using a project management tool, may benefit your team. 

2. Set clear deadlines on all platforms

Setting clear deadlines is essential for success in asynchronous communication. Recipients of asynchronous communication should be made aware of when you want to hear back from them as well as any internal deadlines and the target completion date for the project as a whole. Most project management tools have features that support deadline tracking. Making deadlines clear can go a long way in keeping projects on track even with the flexibility made available with remote work.

3.  Write clear, concise messages on all platforms

Clarity is a vital ingredient in successful asynchronous communication. Any confusion created will likely cause a series of back-and-forth communications which will delay progress. When thinking about clarity, it might be helpful to imagine what follow-up questions the receiver may have and answer them proactively to maintain forward motion. 

4. Craft detailed responses

When you receive questions from your team via asynchronous communication methods, be sure to spend the time required to give a full and detailed response. A quick response may seem like the most efficient use of time, however, that is a misguided thought. Any details missed because of a haphazard response can launch a series of back-and-forth communications which can hold up projects. Asynchronous communication thrives when details are plentiful.

5. Don’t schedule meetings if you don’t need to

One of the benefits of asynchronous communication is the ability to make progress without having to schedule and attend meetings. Emails and comments in shared documents can be very effective and can be used in place of virtual or in-person meetings. It is crucial though to know when a meeting should be called.

Asynchronous communication versus synchronous communication, which one is right for your business?

The long and short of it is that there is no simple, all-encompassing answer to this question. It’s almost always a carefully curated combination of asynchronous communication and synchronous communication that will best serve a business. There are very few workplaces that can effectively rely solely on one or the other of these approaches to communication.  

It is important then, for all of the leaders within your workforce to understand how to weigh both options and select the optimal method for communication in any given situation. It isn’t as black and white as some people believe it to be, and rules like “asynchronous communication is for remote work” and “synchronous communication is for on site work” leave an awful lot to be desired in their attempts at guidance.

Putting policies and processes in place can be very effective to guide the decision making and create uniformity to the approach across your organization, but with a “shades of grey” situation like this, what should be considered as those are written?

Who are you communicating with?

Well, like all communication efforts, one of the most important details to consider is who you are communicating with. For this component, considering factors like what generations your team belongs to, the concentration of introverts vs extroverts and personality types as well as the sheer size of the audience and their demonstrated past behaviour can help you make a great decision about using synchronous or asynchronous communication.  

Gen X team members might prefer a synchronous meeting whereas Millennial and Gen Z staff might respond more positively to a recorded video message. A heavily introverted staff might be more effectively engaged in a brainstorm completed using asynchronous communication, while an extrovert leaning group likely prefers the energy involved with synchronous brainstorm sessions. 

How Urgent Is Your Communication? 

Another important consideration in the synchronous vs asynchronous communication debate is related to timing. As the primary difference between the two approaches is in the time between message delivery and response, this could easily be the variable that tips the scales in one direction or the other.  

For example, if you are on hold with a client and realize you are missing a key piece of information, you should probably get the colleague who has that info on the phone – you’re not likely to get a response to a text or slack message before the hold music stops! 

Conversely, having a document passed back and forth with edits via email, a classic asynchronous approach, may be less desirable when you’re on a tight deadline than using a live document to edit and revise in real time with your collaborators.  Asynchronous communication is not usually your best bet for having time sensitive communication needs met.

Is Complexity a Factor?

One more important variable to consider is the complexity of the communication required and both your ability to effectively pass along all of the nuances and complexities and the receiver’s ability to pick  them up using one form or the other, synchronous or asynchronous communication. 

This area is one where we tend to believe one approach is overall superior to the other, specifically, that if you have to deliver a complex message you need to do it sychronously. However, there are so many excellent tools available to support asynchronous communication that even if that sentiment ever were true, it is now blown out of the water.

Tools like Camtasia and Snagit make it simple and streamlined to communicate layers of complex information effectively using video and image based methods.

All in all, each of these areas and likely other situation specific factors need to be carefully considered when deciding on synchronous or asynchronous communication in the workplace. There in no one answer that will always be right, and there may be some trial and error involved while you learn to navigate this.

Having a strong understanding of the individuals your team is comprised of, as well as an excellent handle on the details of each project you are working on together, will help you make the best choices for your team’s communication.