Zoom Boom Bombing
Had enough of them, yet?
I mean Zoom meetings, conferences, artificial wine gatherings, coffee clatches, other people’s living rooms, the lingering suspicion that, below the nice shirt and tie, there are pajama pants under the desk, the incessant scheduling and pinging…and the invitations and the details?
Well, I have, and necessary evil or not, I am cutting them down to the barest of essential zoomings.
And , according to NPR, I am not alone.
The publicly supported station quotes these leaders:
JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon says there’s no vital “creative combustion” happening in virtual settings.
American Airlines CEO Doug Parker finds Zoom meetings “awful”.
And Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella calls them transactional, where “30 minutes into your first video meeting in the morning … you’re fatigued.”
According to NPR, amid early pandemic lockdowns, many were touting the benefits. James Gorman, CEO of Morgan Stanley, said his bank would need much less real estate in the future because even though he was a fan of having teams together, “we’ve proven we can operate with no footprint.” He was not alone in the sentiment either as NY’s commercial real estate market has gone begging.
C-suiters have gone U-Turn on zoom meetings, holding that they lead to a sterile work culture lacking in imagination.
“What we as human beings need, want, seek … is human contact,” Nadella says. He was speaking at a virtual conference organized by The Wall Street Journal.
Jamie Dimon is quopted by NPR as being worried particularly about how working from home affects JPMorgan’s younger employees. He told analysts that productivity had dipped, especially on Mondays and Fridays.
Dimon stated that bringing people back to the office is paramount to fostering creativity.
Architect and design firms which have an interest in people returning to office spaces report that 40% of people who ran businesses have noticed decreases in productivity from remote working staff.
We learn too that employees, who sit in front of a computer every day in the same spot of their homes find the experience “draining.”
They missed being able to connect face to face with colleagues and had trouble setting boundaries for when work started or ended.
“It was surprising to see so many people felt this remote work fatigue, especially given the headlines of 100% remote forever,” says Sarah McCann , a real estate strategy associate at Vocon.
NPR continues: another survey by virtual tech firm Lucid found that workers didn’t feel like they needed to behave during virtual meetings when no one was looking. Most of them admitted to “questionable behavior” during virtual brainstorm meetings, including 1 in 10 who admitted using the bathroom while on a call. Some workers also admitted to exercising, taking a shower, watching TV and cooking or preparing a meal while participating in virtual brainstorm meetings.
Nathan Rawlins, the chief marketing officer at Lucid, said that’s because virtual meetings are often a series of monologues where people are often checked out and feel “this meeting is the sort of thing where I could lift weights.”
Rawlins said workers were put off by hearing multiple voices simultaneously, which might not be that distracting in a physical setting. The survey also found that younger workers — as many as 1 in 4 — were even breaking company pandemic protocols and meeting with colleagues in person to discuss work projects.
And corporate leaders found that they had to delay major launches, campaigns, or initiatives. Rawlins says these are exactly the kinds of projects that need people to work together in person and collaborate to finish.
Recognizing the importance of collaboration, some large companies, including those that are offering flexible options to employees, are doubling down on office space. Facebook is leasing all the office space at an ornate New York landmark, the former James A. Farley Post Office building.
Lordly and Tailored Amazon: Amazon, which has said employees can work from home until early next year, just bought the beautiful Lord & Taylor building on Fifth Avenue at 38th Street and leased another 2 million square feet in Bellevue, Wash. But these tech giants will continue to offer employees flexible options, recognizing that much work can be done at home, while betting that their employees are also driven by the human impulse to socialize.
Still, there is a recognition by workers and employers alike that more is possible with virtual settings than before.
Workplace consultant Korn Ferry found in a survey that few, as in just 14%, employers say returning to the office every day will be mandatory.
So what will it be?
A socially friendly office, a trip there, an empty nest for 8-10 hours, a little forced exercise, a Deli sandwich or my “home office” so comfortable and, in its way, quite dull.
Will the commercial office market return to vitality?
Will I ever meet the people whose company I bought in London?
Tune in.
Or let’s discuss it all over a drink at the Club.
