Stop with Mandatory Camera On
A Brief Review of Meeting Etiquette and Facilitation during Remote Work
Running a meeting without seeing faces kinda sucks. Not being able to gauge reactions, or even know if someone is on the other end of the internet, is stressful.
But so is being on camera. Especially, it turns out, for women and new team members according to a new study from the APA.
To bring the reality into view, consider a small sample of the reasons folk have told me they’re off camera:
- Weather-inflicted internet lag means they can choose to either be on camera or clearly hear everyone
- They’re having a rough day, and they have enough gas in the tank to either be useful during the meeting or look useful on camera
- For whatever reason, their kid has decided clothes suck and they don’t want to accidentally stream a naked toddler during our meeting
- Allergies mean they’re constantly wiping their nose and sneezing, and (while they can manage this high-priority meeting) they should not be on camera
- To make this meeting time work, they need to also be doing household chores in the background and don’t want to distract people
- Migraine headaches means they can either attend the meeting from a dark room or not attend
(That last one was me. I also attended meetings by candlelight a lot, which… had mixed results.)
If you run meetings regularly, take a deep breath. Now consider if you want to have the best meeting outcome possible, or if you want things to be easier for just you. If you want things to be easier for you, please consider delegating (and maybe checking what your burn-out level looks like these days).
To replace cameras as the default way of reading the virtual room, try the following:
- Ask for a 👍 or 👎 for whether or not you’re understood once you’ve covered a major topic or to get a rough consensus
- If people are not responding, ask for a 1–5 energy level in chat (or with fingers on camera), and if people are tired, move conversations to async
- Use the hands-up feature to sort through people wanting to talk
- Check in with people over Slack or during 1on1s to make sure they’re doing ok
In short, facilitating a meeting remotely is a heck of a skill. To make a meeting productive, enforce the norm that being off-camera is entirely valid, and does not need to be explained. Otherwise, you’re going to alienate and exhaust staff. Instead, use meeting software tools, and lean on asynchronous communication.
