To think people are a bit slack at work these day

[Iseeaghost]

I've worked as part of a multi disciplinary group - both voluntary and statutory sector; for about 2 years

Everyone is quite busy and most of our meetings; 2-4 per month, are on teams or zoom.

Lots of people don't turn up. Most of those that do have cameras off and don't contribute to the meetings. The strategic group ask for feedback to be brought to the session; no one brings it.

On top of this, people don't respond to many emails; even as far as you might be asked for some information or to support a project, will supply that info and don't get a response, not even thank you! There are people working hard on forums who send out valuable information etc but they don't get replies.

I get multiple requests to attend forums, meetings and so on, I get everyone is in a similar position but really?: a simple apology and acknowledgement of an email goes a long way.

Are the forums etc directly relevant and add value to peoples’ jobs?

m I can’t lie I dread things like this. I just find it really difficult to engage in teams training etc . I switch off, emails etc pop up and I think ‘o I’ll quickly deal with that’, I don’t want my camera on because I look terrible because I’m wfh and have made no effort and it shows my double chins, shows my resting bitch face. Also they seem to be compulsory but then I don’t come out of them feeling like I’ve learned something relevant or networked with people (speak to people I’ll never speak to again) etc.

I hope that helps 😂

People have always prioritised meeting attendance, I think with Teams it's more obvious. It's much the same with prep and how important it is. In my sector people are still organised and attend, but then again it's expected and they'd get short shrift if they didn't.

We are encouraged not to send thank yous or unnecessary emails as each email adds to our carbon budget.

The work place is changing, I don't put my camera on until I'm required to speak on busy calls because it just sucks the bandwidth and impacts the quality of the call. Many of the calls I'm on I require the information but am not in a position to contribute often or feedback.

I really hate being in meetings where people don't have their cameras on.

If your home broadband isn't up to it, then you need to do something about it, or get a job where you don't WFH.

You wouldn't sit in a face-to-face meeting with your back turned to everyone, or with a paper bag over your head, so I have no idea why it's acceptable to do it online.

You'd save far more carbon if you didn't put the videos on calls

An equally possible explanation is people are overloaded

How much carbon does one email produce?!?!

Team meetings are boring, awkward. People don't respond to leave group emails as they expect someone else too.

Unless performance has slipped it doesn't mean they aren't working.

People should either send the thank you emails or do it via chat, or in person. It’s a basic for generation or goodwill and team cohesion.

In terms of the meetings - do they have agendas? Does everyone actually need to be there or could they read the minutes? Is the chair capable of keeping the discussion moving or do they let it drift off into ‘whatever Bob wants to moan about today’? Is it a SHBAE (should have been an email)?

Modern meetings are often a waste of time.

Yes! This ☝️

I WFH but try to look presentable so I can have my camera on. I do switch it off in larger meetings when someone is presenting but otherwise I want to speak to an actual face, not a black square or your picture.

You wouldn't sit in a face-to-face meeting with your back turned to everyone, or with a paper bag over your head, so I have no idea why it's acceptable to do it online.

I say this all the time @RockaLock are we the same person 😲🤣

People don't respond to many emails; even as far as you might be asked for some information or to support a project, will supply that info and don't get a response

Has this been raised with their line managers? Is anyone willing to actually confront the problem or are the managers dodging their obligations to manage their people?

There are people working hard on forums who send out valuable information etc but they don't get replies.

Do the people ok actually access the forums? is it the kind of info that needs a reply? If yes - is there a highlighted question to answer and a deadline? If there’s a deadline, I’d failure to respond Again brought up with managers?

I'm WFH today and I have 8 meetings plus a shit ton of stuff to do. Absolutely do I deprioritise giant meetings where people are either speaking at you when you could have been emailed the information or where someone has gone off on a moan. I have work to do so it's camera off and listening whilst I tackle my giant inbox, which doesn't involve sending any emails that are just 'thank you'.

Maybe you need to try and get some feedback on why people aren’t engaging.

Hard to do when they’re not but tips are to address people directly in the meeting. ‘I am just going to gather a few bits of feedback. Jill would this be useful to you in your sector?’ . Keeps people on their toes if they think they may be spoken to directly.

Generally though people may be doing the minimum they can get away with because they’re badly managed, don’t like their job, feel underpaid. Don’t care. Your meeting doesn’t offer them anything useful for their career.

I have been in many many meetings where everyone sits in silence off camera. Good facilitators may ask everyone to type in the chat bar their thoughts on something. Keeps people alert.

@StormKevin not particularly relevant to the OPs initial gripe but as you asked....

0.3g of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per short email,17g CO2e if it's a longer email, 50 g CO2e if there's one image or an attachment . It's better to embed links to documents rather than to share a copy and it's better to share directly to a group channel rather than individual emails.

Carbon footprint of a teams call is 10g CO2e on laptop, 50g CO2e on a desktop. - Significantly less than attending in person of course

The average persons email usage varies between 3 and 40 kg of CO2e over a year that's 10 to 128 miles in a small petrol car.

As a large organisation with 10000 plus employees in the environment industry it's something my particular organisation tries to cut down on amongst other things.

I never put my camera on. For me (autistic) it is a big source of stress and distraction. It also means I am forced to mask my natural autistic behaviours in my own home, which frankly I refuse to do. My home is the one place I can be totally myself and I’m not allowing that to be compromised. Ever.

It is totally different being in a physical meeting. In a physical room you don’t see everyone’s faces at the same time, you don’t have different faces flashing up and moving around, you don’t see your own face etc etc.

OP I think the birth of teams meetings has brought out the fact that most meetings are actually pointless and unnecessary 🤷‍♀️

The people you say don't contribute anything wouldn't in a 'physical' meeting but you wouldn't have noticed as much.

Maybe think about WHO really needs to be in the meeting and if the meeting REALLY is necessary.

This is very interesting - going against the popular view but it feels on teams, people are mentally logged off and I’ve no doubt they are doing other things instead of listening or engaging. A colleague accidentally turned his mic on and we heard 10 seconds of match of the day before he realised and we all pretended we had t heard. Equally, I did a free session for clients on a topic that would help them greatly with their day to day work. Literally no questions and all cameras off so the session terminated really prematurely. It’s things like this that start to ruin wfh for everyone else and means some are being pushed back into the office sadly.

I don't know, I get added to so many meetings where if I spoke it would only be for the sake of saying something because there's really no need for me to be there. And I get a lot of emails that are theoretically useful but I have so many meetings that by the time I see emails I'm trying to do the stuff that was the outcome of the meetings that I needed to be at so I haven't really got the bandwidth to reply to every group email that comes in with no action required from me.

A bit slack? Lol. It's never been this bad.
Full stop.

The answer is yes. I’m guilty of it too.

People seem unable to cope in the workplace

What's changed?

Flipping heck that doesn't sound good for workplace moral! I'm 100% work from home if we cut out the "unnecessary" emails I'd be completely isolated and not know my temperature members at all.
But I do save the planet by cutting out a lot of driving instead!

Neurodiversity aside, I think a lot of people are a bit wet these days, especially younger people.

I recently attended a Teams meeting about career progression, in which my colleagues and I were told if we didn't feel brave enough to ask a question we could type it in the chat and they'd address it for us. We are police officers ffs.

After this there were three people 'brave enough' to speak on a call, about putting ourselves forward for rapid promotion...!, and around 20 typed questions. (I don't believe all of these were neurodiversity issues fwiw.)

We also hear horror stories about new officers refusing to go out in the dark alone, not wanting to work weekends and nights etc

So that's my take. A bit wet.

There's far too much of people speaking for the sake of it and trying to draw attention to themselves and be "visible". Making obvious points as though it's some great insight or repeating things that have already been said in slightly different phrasing.

Many of us worked remotely long before there were video calls and it works perfectly fine. Even after video calls were introduced a large meeting it is standard etiquette to have cameras off unless you are speaking. This was the case with remote working across organisations long before Covid. Everybody having cameras on is only needed if in a small meeting of a few people.

One good thing about remote working is that it cuts down the amount of time that people are forced to spend on pointless idle chatter. It seems to be those who enjoyed that who continually pretend people who just want to deal with the task in hand efficiently are somehow being rude and invent these complaints against it. Why do you need to see the face of everybody on the call throughout the call?

If an email doesn't contain a question or require a response then it's better people don't respond to it as it just creates further work and more emails flying around that people have to waste time reading and deleting. If sending information is part of your role then it shouldn't need specific thanks unless it was an extensive project or you'd gone particularly above and beyond or done something outside of your responsibilities.

I don't respond to most emails unless they require a response.

It's dependent on the sender i.e I'll reply to A 100% of the time as their emails are relevant and need an actual response, whereas I respond to B about 25% of the time as they don't actually require a response and can often be a bit irrelevant.