Working from home - cameras on laptops?

[bbcessex]

I work from home at least two days a week, and regularly have conference calls etc.

In the past, it's not standard to have laptop cameras switched on for conf calls as we are a financial services company and it's not been common, but that's changing with teams about to regularly work more remotely due to corona policy.

I actually much prefer seeing the person / people I'm talking to and i think it helps with connecting / focus / communication. I've given my team notice that as we are all going to be working from home more (not formally told to yet but likely) I'd like to have work laptop cameras on during team calls wherever possible going forward.

Most people are fine - I've had the obvious comments 'oh no, I'll have to get dressed, ha ha', but a couple of people are really not happy about it (without being specific about why).

It's not mandatory of course, and i can't / won't enforce it, but I will encourage it.

Does anyone else have a view on this? Is it unreasonable to encourage?

Kuponut that's ridiculous of your husband's employer. We have to use Teams or similar for meetings but that's all. DH walked into shot a few times today but tough, it's his living room as well! Employers are going to have to understand that these are exceptional circumstances.

It's very simple at our place - we use video conferencing. If you can't or won't do that from home, then you can't work from home.

Lack of broadband capacity or not wanting to show your walls are your problem to solve to be able to work as required.

It's your choice - at the moment, if you can't WFH because of CV-19 then you are on unpaid leave and if sustained may be let go.

Blimey, I'm glad my company values and trusts its employees more than that.

I had to laugh, I did put my camera on today but apart from when I was speaking for about a minute, noone saw the video feed! Apparently the system just shows the video of those speaking or the last few speakers, so I did it all for nothing 🤣

I would say that in this very specific circumstance, it's probably only ok for intimate team coffee chat type calls, because the reality is children will be at home while parents are trying to work in the next few months and it's hard enough trying to maintain the professional veneer without having to convince kids to not sit on your knee (they are like cats, they come when they hear talking)

Not everyone has a home office as you do or indeed much space to carve out permanently for WFH especially if their partner is quarantined

Many of my people, particularly the more junior people, barely have a bedroom in shared house due to high rents. The privacy issue, particularly where there is a ludicrous requirement for all day video calls because managers lack basic competence is an issue. Its not just the employee's privacy, its the privacy of the rest of the household.

It's very simple at our place - we use video conferencing. If you can't or won't do that from home, then you can't work from home

Lack of broadband capacity or not wanting to show your walls are your problem to solve to be able to work as required

It's your choice - at the moment, if you can't WFH because of CV-19 then you are on unpaid leave and if sustained may be let go

Unless there is some excepionally unusual business requirement there this is a great example of incompetent management. Likely to be first to lose staff when the situation normalises and potentially facing some interesting cases of constructive dismissal.

I have been on loads of calls in the last couple of days - nearly all of which would have been in this format rather than face-to-face anyway, because of involving people in different countries. Some people used cameras, some didn't. No one cared. What they do complain about is anyone whose line quality is so bad their voice is breaking up and difficult to listen to; and when screen-sharing for slides or other docs don't work.

Blimey, some of your employers are thick.

Going by a call I was just on, everyone having video on is a bit more stress than the system can easily handle just now, so I am just going to turn mine off unless presenting, rather than having it on by default (which is my usual way of doing things, but we had video on to help people feel less isolated.)

Nope, I've no desire to see my colleagues wherever in the world they may be. I can concentrate better without.

Lack of broadband capacity or not wanting to show your walls are your problem to solve to be able to work as required

Lack of broadband capacity really is not my problem. I have broadband that is relevant to my needs and will not be increasing the speed because I'm currently working from home.

I tried blurring out the background this morning - no way will I be doing that again as it made me look sharper! After my initial misgivings I've decided they can see my manky cupboard door that I haven't had time to paint, I really don't care!

Lack of broadband capacity is completely beyond many people's ability to solve.
I'm fortunate in living in a village but just close enough to the exchange that I've been able to be an early adopter of whatever was available, starting with ASDL and Demon Internet - at considerable cost to my employer. I'm lucky at this point that fibre reached us a couple of years ago and for some reason BT decided to give us FTP.

Lack of broadband capacity is completely beyond many people's ability to solve

Of course it's not. They should just move house to a place with better bb speeds.

They should just move house to a place with better bb speeds.

Making sure they've got space for a dedicated office of course!

I've said I've encouraged it... it's not mandatory.

Yet you've started a whole thread about this non mandatory issue

This thread makes me feel even more fortunate to work for company and a manager that trusts me to just get on with my job without needing to watch me for 8 hours a day.