How remote work affects collaboration

Is working from home overrated? A study in the science journal Nature Human Behavior, “The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers,” points to some concerns about how employees share information while working remotely. The study looked at 61,182 Microsoft employees in the US over the first six months of 2020 when the pandemic began.

“Our results show that firm-wide remote work caused the collaboration network of workers to become more static and siloed, with fewer bridges between disparate parts,” according to an abstract of the study. “Furthermore, there was a decrease in synchronous communication [such as audio or video calls] and an increase in asynchronous communication [such as email]. Together, these effects may make it harder for employees to acquire and share new information across the network.”


Malware and ransomware concerns

When it comes to malware and ransomware, executives have their concerns. The 2021 Dell Technologies Global Data Protection Index survey found that 67% of global IT decision-makers lack confidence that all their business-critical data can be recovered in the event of a destructive cyberattack or data loss.

In addition, 62% are concerned their existing data protection measures may not be sufficient to cope with malware and ransomware threats. Working from home is also raising concerns, with 74% believing they have increased exposure to data loss from cyber threats with the growth in employees working from home.

New technologies were a worry as well. Sixty-three percent believe emerging technologies — such as cloud-native applications, Kubernetes containers, artificial intelligence and machine learning — pose a risk to data protection. And the lack of data protection solutions for newer technologies was one of the top three data protection challenges for organizations.

The survey included 1,000 global IT decision-makers.


On-camera fatigue is real

Being on camera during virtual meetings may be leading to what’s called Zoom fatigue, according to a study led by a University of Georgia researcher that was published in the scientific journal Applied Psychology.

The study is based on 1,408 daily observations from 103 employees and indicated that the use of the camera in Zoom was linked to feelings of fatigue.

It found that using a camera is draining, and the effect is not attributable to the length or number of meetings. It also found that fatigue is problematic for employee engagement during meetings and that women and newer employees were more fatigued by the use of cameras. The study noted that camera usage requires workers to maintain a professional appearance and there are pronounced gender differences in grooming norms that place greater pressure on women.

“Our results suggest that employees are likely to feel better when given the option to turn their camera off,” according to the study. However, it cautioned that virtual meetings with the camera off does not necessarily mean the meetings will be more engaging.


Video or audio call mistakes: You’re fired

Nearly a quarter of executives, 24%, have seen a staff member get fired over a mistake made during an audio or video conference, according to Vyopta, a collaboration intelligence company.

In all, the survey found that 83% of executives have seen disciplinary action taken against an employee because of mistakes in an audio or video conference. In addition to termination, 53% saw responsibility for calls moved to another staff member, 40% saw an informal reprimand, 38% saw a formal reprimand and 33% saw a staff member removed from a project.

The survey was conducted by Wakefield Research and included 200 US executives at companies with 500 employees or more.