HSBC and Citi have introduced so-called “Zoom-free” days, setting aside a day of the week where employees aren’t expected to be on video calls. These decisions are based off anecdotal feedback from staff, as well as an emerging research around the effects that constant video calls on Zoom, or a range of similar tools that companies use like Slack, Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex, are having on employees. The research examines some of the main causes of this fatigue: excessive eye gaze, seeing yourself reflected back to you for hours, being tethered to one physical location for extended periods of time, and increased difficulty in interpreting non-verbal cues. Tech giants TikTok and Salesforce have also imposed limits on the amount of video meetings their employees do.

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