Technology has played a crucial role in keeping our lives, both work and professional, moving during the pandemic.
But it’s important to remember that the tools we’ve benefited so much from over the last 12 months also come with their own pitfalls.
“Technology has been a double-edged sword,” RingCentral Chief Product Officer, Will Moxley, says.
“It’s been a huge enabler… but employees need to communicate much more than before, and they can end up bombarding and overwhelming each other with messages – and when you’re in video meetings all day you become fatigued.”
Moxley was speaking during his session at UC Summit, which focused on the trade-off between the benefits of remote working and its potentially negative side effects.
He admitted that he has, at times, struggled with the demands of WFH life himself.
“People have a strong need to physically and mentally switch off at the end of the day; I know I’ve felt this way before,” he continued.
“I definitely get this fatigue from video meetings and that is why I often during the day try and mix it up and switch to a phone call”
It’s a tough balancing act because, ultimately, it is things like video meetings that have enabled us to be productive during a period of enforced remote working.
Moxley said that some of the success businesses have seen throughout the pandemic has stemmed from colleagues going “above and beyond”.
But this is perhaps not sustainable in the long term.
Moxley said that some of the extra effort put in over the past year has involved cashing in on a form of “social credit” that is built up through relationships and collaboration. But building up that credit takes time and is more difficult in a virtual environment that many of us are not used to.
An employee may go above and beyond for a colleague they have an established relationship with, for example, because that social credit has been built up. However, a new employee may find it difficult to ask colleagues to go out of their way to help because they won’t have had the opportunity to build up the kind of rapport that contributes to a stock of social credit.
But in an all-remote environment, how can a new employee build up the social credit? Moxley said that employers need to make sure they are providing environments to build effective virtual relationships.
