Unless You Can Pick Up On Colleagues’ Nonverbal Cues – Zoom Work Relationships Are A Lot Harder To Build
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
The big idea
Workers who communicate with their colleagues mainly through videoconferencing are far less effective at building relationships than when the communication is done face to face, according to a study we recently completed and just submitted for peer review. We also found two important ways employees can overcome the downside of video meetings.
Workers in our study reported a sharp deterioration in their work relationships after more of their communications were done via videoconferencing during the pandemic, which our analysis suggested made the employees three times less effective at building relationships.
Participants reported that it was harder to understand their coworkers’ nonverbal cues and to listen i...