Virtual Meeting Pet Peeves Abound.

• Position: VIDEO CALL FATIGUE

Video calls may be wearing on workers, suggests a study by global staffing firm Robert Half, Menlo Park, Calif. Some 76% of professionals surveyed say they participate in virtual meetings. Those respondents report spending 30% of their workday on camera with business contacts or colleagues.

Thirty-eight percent indicate they have experienced video call fatigue since the start of the pandemic. Twenty-six percent note that the practicality and novelty of videoconferencing has worn off over the past several months. Some 24% confirm they find virtual meetings inefficient and exhausting and prefer to communicate via other channels, like email or phone.

The most-common video call pet peeves deal with technical issues (28%) and too many meeting participants with people talking over each other (19%). One in four working parents report spending over half of their on-the-job hours in virtual meetings. More women (47%) than men (32%) say they are tired of videoconferencing.

"Video calls became the go-to way for professionals to connect, collaborate, and build rapport at the start of the pandemic," says Paul McDonald, senior executive director of Robert Half. "While effective...