Of course companies can make employees do a lot. How much, depends on the job situation on the market and the private situation of each employee. Many employees cannot afford to lose their job. They might just have bought a house, have a family which depends on their salary to survive.
That is, why a lot of companies get away with "making" employees to do things. The more, the less there is protection of jobs.
This reminds me of the time I worked at this company where IT enforced all passwords (email, laptop, AWS, etc) to be changed every month. Every time I got the prompt I would send them a study showing how this was actually making security worse.
Let me tell you something that you will have great value from in life.
The cost of free will is to sometimes be difficult to understand for other people.
My webcam is always off. Nobody expects me to have it on anymore. In the beginning I got a few questions about why. I said I don't like how I look on camera to other people. Nobody even tried to convince me to have it on.
You are not an adult until you learn to do what you want and handle other people's opinions as exactly that - their opinions. Its what they want, not what you want. The difference is very important.
Tldr... Grow balls, learn to do what you want and be OK with what other people may think. After a few days or weeks, it becomes normal for them and they can focus on other important topics like who wins the bachelor this year.
Wow, a lot of the “grow up” input I received from youth on was to stop being selfish and only thinking about my needs. And I found treating other people’s opinions as important to be really useful in being married and raising kids.
Social groups must have highly variable definitions of adult behavior.
However, my camera is off when I haven’t had time to take a shower, a dashing down the hall for a bio break, and many other times. When I talk with my hands too, my camera is definitely on, and I appreciate the nuance of others’ facial expressions.
Do people who feel anxious because of a zoom camera also feel anxious during in-person meetings? I can't quite see the difference to be honest.
I do occasionally keep my camera off when it would be obvious that I'm doing something else during a boring/useless meeting, but it has nothing to do with "anxiety".
Like the color of your couch? I mean, OK, it's a stretch but maybe some people get really stressed about that. Most video conference programs allow you to put a fake background though.
At least where I work, it's company policy that, if you have your camera on (this is optional), you either blur the background or replace it with a virtual background. Doesn't that address this concern?
All your reactions, manners, and living conditions can be recorded and later judged by your collegue's mother-in-law during a Zoom call. It would be a bit more difficult for her to achieve that during an in-person meeting at the office.
All your reactions, manners, and living conditions can be recorded and later judged by your collegue's mother in law during a Zoom call.
First, you can tell if a zoom is being recorded, and I'm guessing most of the time they are not. 1 in 200 of meetings I've been in the last 2 years has been recorded.
Second, that's quite a dramatic stance. Colleague's mother-in-law? Seriously?
The benefit to seeing and being seen by your coworkers is very great.
I'm pretty sure you can record a Zoom call in several ways without the app detecting it.
> Colleague's mother-in-law? Seriously?
It's a joke. Meaning, you must assume that you are constantly recorded during your work on Zoom, and that the recordings can wind up anywhere and used for any purpose.
Seems like you have to adapt that threat model for your actual coworkers though? If they weren’t jerks beforehand, the physical separation and privacy of remote work only makes them marginally more likely to behave like jerks now. If they were jerks beforehand … my sympathies, maybe the mother-in-law has some helpful design advice?
I’ve seen plenty of research on this as part of my job. There are plenty of obvious stressors (people seeing your background, audio lag, connection hiccups) but there’s also VC fatigue. At least right now, people find all day VC meetings more exhausting than all day in person meetings.
In a ten person meeting in person, is everyone in the room going to stare at you personally for the entire hour? If you’re in Zoom, that’s what you see. Huge difference in social stress not knowing if people are looking at you and seeing a video view that makes it look like everyone is.
There's a pretty huge difference between being on camera and being face-to-face, and yes, for a lot of people (maybe most), being on camera is more stress-inducing.
One of the problems with the Camera-On experience is that… it’s just not very good. By good, I mean good enough to tell when someone is lying, or to tell when someone is trying to interject in that way that is easy in-person but so often ends in stepping on one-another on these conf sessions. It just doesn’t add enough.
Sure, you cannot replace an in-person experience with an online experience with no other changes. But why would you? You can't replace a car ride with a motorcycle, but you can absolutely travel effectively with a motorcycle. Thinking there's only one way to work, and if that way doesn't work in all contexts the working context is correct, is just silly.
This is just handwaved nonsense. You're telling me that prior to video calls, people didn't cultivate relationships on non-video phonecalls? Just total nonsense.
If I look back over 25+ years, I think there’s a time and a place for most modes of work. I wouldn’t want to have to kick-off a high value, high risk, complex project delivery or product development purely remotely. Likewise while IMO fine for day-to-day and mid-point reviews, I also wouldn't want to conduct a project retrospective or (in the case of failure, or partial failure) autopsy or lessons learned, in a wholly remote mode.
I do these, and they work. Mostly because the participants are serious and they know the consequences very well. Sometimes it wouldn't even be possible to do otherwise as several participants are in different parts of the globe.
I have a coworker who announces his presence by announcing his self every time he joins. It does not matter if two other people are in the middle of a conversation, once he joins a meeting he announces that " name is here" I just don't understand it.
Stop having meetings which are slow, unproductive, and overall a waste of time. Plenty of stuff can be done in Slack or email.
When you really need a meeting, people shouldn’t have an issue turning on their webcams. Better yet, try to make the meeting in-person. Real meetings are infrequent and important.
Agreed. I have a 4-6 person remote team and we have daily 1/2 hour meetings that are supposed to be an active discussion. If someone was at their desk and didn't turn on their camera on, I'd find it strange.
On the other hand, last year I had to go to a 20+ person "remote offsite" full of content I didn't care about delivered with very little interaction. We were told we had to keep our cameras on for that, I just pretended I didnt hear that part.
Just during meetings? Since January my office (~30 people) have needed to be on our webcams and headphones on 9-5 each day. The headphones are so people can ask you to quickly jump into a virtual meeting.
While I'm not interrupted very often due to my role, it's been quite a frustrating experience.
It's supposed to make everyone feel like we're on one big 'virtual office'. Of course, it might be true that in a real office anyone can come up and chat when they feel like it, there isn't a very high chance of my kids running into a real meeting naked because they've just come out of a shower/pool.
I actually took a similar stance to the person in the article and after a few weeks just moved my camera to point further and further towards a wall and just keep my hands in frame. A few grumbles but no calls from HR, yet.
Seems like the same absurd misunderstanding of remote work as office-simulation that leads to those silly iPad-on-a-stick telepresence robots. Coupled with the sort of management culture I can’t imagine to be pleasant to work for
> He added that managers, especially male managers, should turn off cameras during these times or employees will otherwise feel pressure to show their faces.
What a ridiculous article. In this time of remote work, connecting is hard. Humans are not input/output devices. We need to be able to see each other in the eye. Managers, especially, should set the right example and turn their on cameras - and ask their team to do so too.
Nobody is forcing. If you don't like it, find another job. But a requirement to be present in a meeting is not unreasonable, and camera on is a closer proxy to physically present than otherwise.
Remember what we did before the lockdown? Call-in meetings? No camera. This is the same thing, really but now we can do things like share screens. My team has one meeting we ask everyone to have their camera on - the sprint review. That's every two weeks and everybody is there with cameras on. Otherwise, nearly the whole team as their cameras off during meetings.
You're projecting your personal needs onto others while not being empathetic to the needs of others. Human connections are two way but don't always involve the same avenues.
> We need to be able to see each other in the eye.
This isn't what happens during webcam meetings. If you're looking at the camera (to try and provide eye contact), you're not able to see anyone looking back at you.
> Managers, especially, should set the right example and turn their on cameras - and ask their team to do so too.
Definitely not, and I wouldn't work for a manager that cared if my camera was on or not.
What a ridiculous thing that is. Thats so clunky and unappealing. Somebody should just write some software to simulate direct gaze into the camera or something more elegant than attaching a periscope to the top of your poor laptop.
With remote work, if you're talking, I'm expecting you to be referencing something visual - a document, a diagram, etc. I'm looking at a much better eye by tracking what your cursor is doing on screen, and I find your face to be distracting. Especially having to swap views between your shared screen and your face.
I agree with you, and I think the majority does as well, despite the misanthropic replies you're getting.
In any workplace I've been in, teamwork is important, even for technical ICs. It really doesn't send a signal that you want to work with other people or participate in a discussion if you're just sitting there with the camera off. It would be the same as sitting facing the wall in an in-person meeting. You could still hear but you're basically signaling you don't respect the discussion. If that's true, it's a different problem, same as if you're worried your boss is recording you or judging your furniture.
Personally I'd quit a job that told me I couldn't hold meetings with my camera on.
> It really doesn't send a signal that you want to work with other people or participate in a discussion if you're just sitting there with the camera off.
That only matters if you aren't otherwise working with people and participating in discussions. Meetings are not where most of that happens. They aren't even where the most important of that happens.
Turn your camera on if you want. We're talking about the opposite here, not being allowed to turn it off during meeting.
If you feel strongly about your right to turn it on if it pleases you, then you should agree with people who want the right to turn it off if they want.
> We need to be able to see each other in the eye.
No, we don't, why would you think that?
We never have camera on and work is going smoothly. Nobody ever suggested using it. I don't even know how the new hires look like, but it doesn't matter, because I can treat them like humans without attaching a mental representation of their physical form. I got this skill from an experience called 'phone call'.
I wonder if it is a culture difference. I'm from eastern Europe and no one I have asked uses camera, outside those forced due to working directly with the US. People who can't stand not being able to judge their coworkers faces, where are you from?
Anyway, put your camera on if you want to, I can get used to ignoring it. Please don't force your preferences on others.
I don't want to open them or see others because it kills my CPU and causes throttles, and if I share screen it's like a meltdown is happening. Macbook 15 - 2018 with 6 cores and 32GB memory.
On the other hand, my personal M1 Macbook does not even go past 50C on 30+ person Zoom chats.
I'd still close my feed because the problem I have is too many meetings, and more than half of them are not important. But when you say, this Zoom session should have been an email/slack/document, I come across as "that" person and get shunned.
Me & my coworkers with 2018 Macs all have this problem in Teams. I tried to search for a solution and can only see other people complaining. I really can not understand how I can't even seem to be able to scroll in Slack sometimes when I'm in a Teams meeting, and how seemingly this is the case for so many people!
My 2011 macbook air performs fine in teams, I pulled it out in a moment of desperation/frustration to try and it's now my laughable solution for all teams meetings I have to attend
I don't even have a camera. I needed one to do some training that required it and I treated it like something borrowed and gave it back after the training.
That's actually why the camera is optional. For security reasons, none of our dev machines have cameras or microphones, providing enough friction to management that they just said "never mind".
If my camera isn't on, it's because my work laptop is stashed on a shelf closed due to space contraints in my home office/bedroom/craft room/music room/class room combo, and frankly, I'm not ready to invite my coworkers into the bedroom I share with my wife.
Don't make assumptions about other's situations just because it doesn't match yours.
My boss pressured us with the article "Yes, it’s rude to have your camera off during a video meeting" https://archive.is/RwiZk
The first meeting they commented on the weight I put on since I was last on webcam and if I didn't want those comments I should use my webcam more often.
I no longer feel any shred of guilt saying 'no' each time they ask now.
Having worked remote before the pandemic I found having my camera on was a very good reminder to the team that I was still there. Increasing your visibility when you are one of a few remote employees is very important.
All that said a camera only helps so much. There is something to be said for traveling to your office periodically to put in real face time. I’m looking forward to offices starting to open up here soon.
I don't understand the people who refuse to never turn their camera on because they "don't like how I look on camera" I feel that is is all about reading the room. If you are in a meeting with a feel there is no need to have your camera on the whole time owhole bunch of people and you are mostly listening in I r at all. On the other hand if it is only a handfull of people say 5-6 max where you are having a discussing it is more appropriate to have a camera on.
I can't speak to other fields that require more extrinsic motivation, but as an engineering manager, cameras are pointless for teams. It's yet another one of those performative things like making your employees show up by 8am. It's a loose correlator to performance at best.
What does matter are non-transactional relationships among teams. That's what remote work has really made harder. Cameras don't make relationships more or less transactional. What makes relationships less transactional is an hour of team building. Play a few rounds of Among Us on company time...whatever the team feels like it can come together around that isn't work, which is what water cooler breaks amounted to, anyway.
Regardless, if employees don't feel comfortable being seen by the team, that's a sign of deeper team problems. Simply making them turn the camera on won't fix it.
> "I was on a call with about 15 employees and [the speaker] said everyone should have their camera on because it's company policy and part of our culture now," said the woman
This should probably become an interview question when screening candidates for companies that care about this sort of thing.
Or at least something to mention in the job description, like "Role requires the use of audio / text only during meetings, video is forbidden" or "Role requires 5-20 hours of face time per week".
Humans are evolved to interact with faces. Along with language and voice tone, a lot of our emotions are conveyed through facial expressions. If your coworkers and managers see your face instead of just hearing you, you're more likely to build a connection. Sure, we can argue exactly how much more of a connection it is to actually see someone's face rather than just hear them. But if you're looking to make an impact, get promoted, etc., you're going to be more memorable and seem like you're making an effort to connect if you turn your camera on.
Like a lot of corporate policies, this is a reasonable sentiment made absurd by universal application and coercion.
Is it nice to see coworkers? Yes, IMO. Nice enough to set a general expectation that cameras be on during meetings? Sure, I guess. Nice enough that someone that declines (explicitly or implicitly) for whatever reason should face even a hint of a resistance to that decision? Emphatically no.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] threadThat is, why a lot of companies get away with "making" employees to do things. The more, the less there is protection of jobs.
I got the HR complain after 4 times I think :)
The cost of free will is to sometimes be difficult to understand for other people.
My webcam is always off. Nobody expects me to have it on anymore. In the beginning I got a few questions about why. I said I don't like how I look on camera to other people. Nobody even tried to convince me to have it on.
You are not an adult until you learn to do what you want and handle other people's opinions as exactly that - their opinions. Its what they want, not what you want. The difference is very important.
Tldr... Grow balls, learn to do what you want and be OK with what other people may think. After a few days or weeks, it becomes normal for them and they can focus on other important topics like who wins the bachelor this year.
Social groups must have highly variable definitions of adult behavior.
However, my camera is off when I haven’t had time to take a shower, a dashing down the hall for a bio break, and many other times. When I talk with my hands too, my camera is definitely on, and I appreciate the nuance of others’ facial expressions.
I do occasionally keep my camera off when it would be obvious that I'm doing something else during a boring/useless meeting, but it has nothing to do with "anxiety".
First, you can tell if a zoom is being recorded, and I'm guessing most of the time they are not. 1 in 200 of meetings I've been in the last 2 years has been recorded.
Second, that's quite a dramatic stance. Colleague's mother-in-law? Seriously?
The benefit to seeing and being seen by your coworkers is very great.
I'm pretty sure you can record a Zoom call in several ways without the app detecting it.
> Colleague's mother-in-law? Seriously?
It's a joke. Meaning, you must assume that you are constantly recorded during your work on Zoom, and that the recordings can wind up anywhere and used for any purpose.
In a ten person meeting in person, is everyone in the room going to stare at you personally for the entire hour? If you’re in Zoom, that’s what you see. Huge difference in social stress not knowing if people are looking at you and seeing a video view that makes it look like everyone is.
It's not simple at all.
Sure, you cannot replace an in-person experience with an online experience with no other changes. But why would you? You can't replace a car ride with a motorcycle, but you can absolutely travel effectively with a motorcycle. Thinking there's only one way to work, and if that way doesn't work in all contexts the working context is correct, is just silly.
Sure, but how does that relate to video calls? They are by definition not in person, camera or not.
The opposite is true as well. Why show up in person when you can be effective remotely?
I feel like we're just saying things now though.
Building relationships is always easier face to face, whether it's a business, platonic, or romantic relationship.
When participants join, all they'd hear is a little chirp, and then invariably, someone would ask "who just joined?"
Announcing themselves just seems like a time saver that is no longer necessary in the videoconference age.
When you really need a meeting, people shouldn’t have an issue turning on their webcams. Better yet, try to make the meeting in-person. Real meetings are infrequent and important.
On the other hand, last year I had to go to a 20+ person "remote offsite" full of content I didn't care about delivered with very little interaction. We were told we had to keep our cameras on for that, I just pretended I didnt hear that part.
While I'm not interrupted very often due to my role, it's been quite a frustrating experience.
I actually took a similar stance to the person in the article and after a few weeks just moved my camera to point further and further towards a wall and just keep my hands in frame. A few grumbles but no calls from HR, yet.
What a ridiculous article. In this time of remote work, connecting is hard. Humans are not input/output devices. We need to be able to see each other in the eye. Managers, especially, should set the right example and turn their on cameras - and ask their team to do so too.
This isn't what happens during webcam meetings. If you're looking at the camera (to try and provide eye contact), you're not able to see anyone looking back at you.
> Managers, especially, should set the right example and turn their on cameras - and ask their team to do so too.
Definitely not, and I wouldn't work for a manager that cared if my camera was on or not.
Bodelin Webcam Teleprompter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cn4LUoIpf1M
As both a manager, and as somebody who reports to a manager, no, absolutely not.
In any workplace I've been in, teamwork is important, even for technical ICs. It really doesn't send a signal that you want to work with other people or participate in a discussion if you're just sitting there with the camera off. It would be the same as sitting facing the wall in an in-person meeting. You could still hear but you're basically signaling you don't respect the discussion. If that's true, it's a different problem, same as if you're worried your boss is recording you or judging your furniture.
Personally I'd quit a job that told me I couldn't hold meetings with my camera on.
That only matters if you aren't otherwise working with people and participating in discussions. Meetings are not where most of that happens. They aren't even where the most important of that happens.
If you feel strongly about your right to turn it on if it pleases you, then you should agree with people who want the right to turn it off if they want.
No, we don't, why would you think that?
We never have camera on and work is going smoothly. Nobody ever suggested using it. I don't even know how the new hires look like, but it doesn't matter, because I can treat them like humans without attaching a mental representation of their physical form. I got this skill from an experience called 'phone call'.
I wonder if it is a culture difference. I'm from eastern Europe and no one I have asked uses camera, outside those forced due to working directly with the US. People who can't stand not being able to judge their coworkers faces, where are you from?
Anyway, put your camera on if you want to, I can get used to ignoring it. Please don't force your preferences on others.
On the other hand, my personal M1 Macbook does not even go past 50C on 30+ person Zoom chats.
I'd still close my feed because the problem I have is too many meetings, and more than half of them are not important. But when you say, this Zoom session should have been an email/slack/document, I come across as "that" person and get shunned.
Don't make assumptions about other's situations just because it doesn't match yours.
The first meeting they commented on the weight I put on since I was last on webcam and if I didn't want those comments I should use my webcam more often.
I no longer feel any shred of guilt saying 'no' each time they ask now.
All that said a camera only helps so much. There is something to be said for traveling to your office periodically to put in real face time. I’m looking forward to offices starting to open up here soon.
What does matter are non-transactional relationships among teams. That's what remote work has really made harder. Cameras don't make relationships more or less transactional. What makes relationships less transactional is an hour of team building. Play a few rounds of Among Us on company time...whatever the team feels like it can come together around that isn't work, which is what water cooler breaks amounted to, anyway.
Regardless, if employees don't feel comfortable being seen by the team, that's a sign of deeper team problems. Simply making them turn the camera on won't fix it.
This should probably become an interview question when screening candidates for companies that care about this sort of thing.
Or at least something to mention in the job description, like "Role requires the use of audio / text only during meetings, video is forbidden" or "Role requires 5-20 hours of face time per week".
Is it nice to see coworkers? Yes, IMO. Nice enough to set a general expectation that cameras be on during meetings? Sure, I guess. Nice enough that someone that declines (explicitly or implicitly) for whatever reason should face even a hint of a resistance to that decision? Emphatically no.