And so there are direct links and correlations between this concept of virtual fatigue. And why it's important for us to do this. pause for a minute, my brain needs a moment, I actually need a moment where I'm not doing absolutely anything, I'm not being forced to think I'm not being forced to process information, I'm not being forced to retain information, because we are overworking our brain.
Hey, all you inbox escape is welcome to Out of Office, the podcast where two partners in life and in business discuss the balance between work, happiness, and fulfillment, and your world in between out of office supplies. We're your host, Chris Kadesh. And today, we're going to be getting out of the dough glow of those inboxes and bringing you a fresh perspective on what it means to be human, both inside and out of office.
Welcomed out of office, if you are listening to us for the first time, you should know something important. You are listening to a series of unscripted conversations between a married couple that owns their own business in his raising a family of six together while also working full time. And if you're married, or in a long term partnership with kids, and you're wondering when we find the time to have these conversations. Well, now the title of the show should make much more sense. We're having these conversations wherever we can find the time. And that might mean we're in our car, in our living room, outside on the porch or on a walk around the neighborhood if the weather's nice. That being said, you might hear some bumps along the roads that we travel, or you might hear some turn signals that interrupt a line of dialogue here or there. Or you might hear some family chatter in the background. Either way, it's all part of the out of office experience. Because we know that's probably the life a lot of you are living as well. So happy listening. And thanks for following out of office. This is very excited, very, and you brought us a little nugget of an idea here
about exploring out of office messages. And you brought me your out of office message. In fact, wow, you know, what happened with these out of office messages is that because we are HR professionals, and this is what we do for a living, we have a business together. So when we did our introduction, we talked about partners in business in life, we run an HR business partner consultancy. And when we do out of office messages, and you know, the generic out of office messages like I'm away, I will not respond. Those are mine. I like I like the generic this just the AMA way, no one, no one message me, I see what I'll be back. I'm away. I'll be back in a couple of weeks. So I started to send these out of office messages that incorporated both practical pieces of human resources and wellness pieces for human beings so excellent at what you do. No, because you're excellent. Thank you, that's very excellent together.
And I would do an out of office and the out of office would you know, include some kind of educational piece on why it's important to really take the time to be out of office. And one time I didn't put a detailed out of office with some kind of description about how to be well, while you're while I was away. I had a team member say to me, Wow, I really miss you out of office. And then I realized, wow, people are actually reading the audience. Yeah, audio. We're looking for more out of office. So here we are. There we go. And our first episode is on our latest out of office message which is about virtual pauses. Yes. And the importance of virtual pauses, pause, pause Hold on, as it relates to virtual fatigue. And yes, virtual fatigue is a thing.
So virtual fatigue, as I understand it, is
the process of getting more and more tired. The more you are exposed to virtual settings. It could be in the workplace, but it could be just in general. Yeah. So you're looking if you're looking at anything through your screen if you're interacting with people through a screen, if you're interacting with your email or text or or anything that has that little glow, that light glow to it. Of it
initially is, it's like a ticking its ticking clock. And eventually you just, it's going to wear you out and wear you out faster then
person to person interaction IRL in real life. Yeah. So before, you know, this kind of last four year period, we would often use, go to meetings zooms just because we're trying to communicate maybe across waters internationally. But now we use it for almost everything. Because we're trying to address this hybrid remote work environment and trying to make up for time and all of our meetings that are unnecessary, and guess what we get in front of the camera, we get in front of the zoom, and then within 30 minutes of being in the zoom, we start to feel worn out. It's not because you didn't get enough sleep is because virtual fatigue is really a thing. So we I was reading an article
by so we better make this podcast fast.
You're reading an article sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.
So I was reading an article by Arianna Huffington. And the title of that article article, it's on Thrive global. So you guys can find it, you folks can find it. In the description below in the description of the podcast.
Virtual fatigue is real. And so is the science of taking breaks. So there are tons of research, there was research that came out of Microsoft human factors lab that shows that it's a real thing. And that there is a science between taking breaks when you are going in between meetings on Zoom, or whenever you're doing anything that is requiring you to stare at a screen. And if you don't take those virtual breaks. So if we think that filling up our calendars with a lot of zoom meetings and a whole lot of conversations with colleagues via zoom, whatever it is WebEx, Google means you name the application, there is a platform for it now, what it does it it decreases your productivity and it decreases your overall wellness. And so part of our out of office messages is really to help people to think about what they need to do to be well, not just at work, but just to be well human beings. So you go home to your family, you go home to your friends, and they're like, why are you so tired? Why are you so exhaustible if you spend 80% of your day, on a zoom call, or on some kind of virtual platform, having conversations, it takes a tremendous amount of energy, as matter of fact takes a lot of brainpower. Sure it is. Yeah, I think one of the things that was interesting about what we learned through this process was that when you look at virtual fatigue, it's largely the result of the fact that we've set our workplaces up to be virtual marathons, we're spending 468 hours of the day, if not more, sitting in front of a computer trying to interact in these environments, by just going from meeting to meeting to meeting no breaks in between, right back to back meetings, back to back conversations. And if we're not in a conversation, we're trying we're on
whatever chat service we have, right, whatever chat channels we have, trying to send documents back and forth in our email, etc. And so we've just set up this massive literal, it takes what four to six hours sort of Marathon to if you're really fast, right? We set up this marathon of virtual events for people to jump through over the course of the day. But if you're a knowledge worker, which most of us are, if you think for a living, which most of us do, then
what you are going to need to do, especially in the new economy, is to be able to set up your day, like a series of sprints. Right? I'm a sprinter, you're you are a sprinter. You're a great sprinter. But you also are intentional about taking those vertical pauses. The thing about the sprint too, that's really important. And I know that you can talk a little bit about the sprint concept and project management, which when we were reading the follow up article that helped us to prepare for the podcast. We're like, oh, project managers had the right idea between the sprint meetings, which you know, Chris will talk about in a second. But the thing that is important to acknowledge for a knowledge worker is that our brain we need a reset our brain needs resets during the day weren't, we're not just like, you know, it's like when you're working on your laptop and you get that blue, the blue screen, there are moments where we get
The blue screen and our brains are like, look, this is information overload. Not only can I not process this information, but I'm not going to retain anything, you've had to say 30 minutes into the conversation, you're thinking about something else, or you're thinking about how you need rest, 30 minutes into the conversation, you're exhausted. And so what's happening when we're going from meeting to meeting or having these conversations, whether it's via teens, or whether it's Google chatter, whatever it is, whatever platform is, we're actually accumulating stress. So your brain is saying, hey, look, real quick, folks, if you can think of how you found out about this podcast, somebody probably shared it with you because they know like and care about you and your success. That's exactly the way that we hoped you'd receive this message. And that being the case, the only way our message can grow, is through word of mouth. So we don't run ads conditioned, I don't seek out sponsorships, and we don't sell anything. So our only ask is that if our podcast has in any way helped you, please keep that good karma going by doing exactly what the friend who shared this with you did, whether you write a review, or post or share this podcast with a friend, it would mean the world to us. And we'll help someone else build confidence and function filament as they integrate their life and family with their work. Thanks so much. I'm overwhelmed by this conversation, and you didn't take a break. And then you add another layer of another conversation and another layer of another conversation. And before you know it, you have a person at the end of the day, that is not only fatigue, but overwhelmed and stress. Now, we can talk about what stress does to the body, we can talk about what stresses them to the mind what stress does to your health. And so there are direct links and correlations between this concept of virtual fatigue, and why it's important for us to do this. pause for a minute, my brain needs a moment, I actually need a moment where I'm not doing absolutely anything, I'm not being forced to think I'm not being forced to process information, I'm not being forced to retain information, because we are overworking our brain, we are overworking our capacity to actually be productive by seemingly adding more meetings that
are perceived to be productive, which makes us less productive if we're not taking care of our mind. Yeah, you're I mean, you're hitting on this subject of diminishing returns. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And what the data shows us in terms of people's attention is that after 15 to 20 minutes in a meeting, right, you, you are not retaining any more information. You're not You're not your brain is not focused on the conversation, right. And so you can or even if you're
engaged in some kind of task, where you're learning new information, you can get 20 to 25 minutes, but after that 25th minute, you're going to your brain is going to want to tap out. And if you push it any more than that, you stress your self out. Yeah, it's like a WWE wrestling match where you're like, tapping
out had
we had that moment.
Or when you're, you're in the zoom, and you're the facilitator, or you're not the facilitator, but you're expected to be actively engaging, and they call you like Chris, and you're like, yeah,
like Kardashian, you're like, Yeah, you know, you're trying your best to be to be present, but your brain is like, I can't do this. You are you have a buddy in the room. You just like I agree with what I agree with what Chris just said, it's like, okay, that's alright. Go into that.
We're not we're just saying take a pause, don't agree with whatever the person just said, If you don't actually know what they said. But the the stress factors are, are critical for everybody. Right? Because we're seeing a rise in more people taking days off. Right. You know, this is an HR professional people using that PTO, because they ran out of sick days. Yeah, people were running out of sick days because they are truly experiencing exacerbations of autoimmune issues, chronic stress stress related diseases. Uh huh. Yeah. All those sorts of things are happening. Yeah, like in the last four years, we've seen a significant amount of a significant increase in the number of PTO days that people are taking. And some of the PTO days are just like I needed time to reset like language like that. It's not even a sick day anymore. It's like I needed a time to unwind when we would love for, you know, the PTO time that we earned to go towards vacation like
Right Moment in Punta Cana or something. That's where I want to go, you got the accent.
Since this is my partner in life as well, I might as well just put out some vacation spots I'd like, for gifts for mothers and you know, but
to get it on the record, hold him accountable.
hold him accountable. But when I take my whole podcast, just a friend for my virtual pause. Okay, Dave, I'm taking a virtual, very meta, that's very iconic. That's it. Whoa, chose three years that timing on, you know, that's like seven, seven dimensional chess. That's amazing. That was well done.
Wherever you choose to go for vacation, we'd like for the PTO to be used that way? I did. Yeah. But we're not seeing that. Because of the stress factors that are being evoked in this virtual environment, in a virtual environment. So what can we do about it, take pauses. And it's okay to take a break. And it's okay to say to your team, or to those that are asking for your time, that it's okay to take a break, and guess what the science backs it, the data backs it. So it's easy to say, Look, I need a moment, you can actually put some time on your calendar that says breathe maybe 15 minutes block blocks to breed so that when people try to book your time, they can only book it in between those 15 minute blocks you have that are available, but it's really important to do that. Some of the studies that, you know, we've read, indicate they were doing MRIs of the brain, after two hours of meetings, you start to see the stress response increase. And so if you're meeting all the way from like 8am, to 3pm. And that 3pm meeting is the you know, you ever wonder why productive is that meeting, and not just that your fuses like short at 3pm. And it's everything, you know, you might not be the kindest human being you might not show up, you know, in your best self and your most risk, rested, paused, reset self. Yeah. So a couple of things that you can do block off 15 minutes to just breathe. And it's okay to put that breathe out. What was that article that we read? I forgot what CEO had time blocks on their calendar? Yeah, that
there's been several that I think are related to that theme. But I think what's what, what was really interesting about some of the conversations that we've had with people who are implementing this, including you is that
managers need to provide air cover for their staff members who are putting, I'm putting breeze on my calendar for 15 minutes. And then, you know, Sally, or Tim, sorry, at all the salary terms, it's just the first thing that popped in my head, goes on their calendar and says, Well, conditions blocked out for 15 minutes of breathing, like what is that all about? Right? In order for something to be in power, or part of a company culture, management has to provide air cover has to normalize the practice of people taking and creating space in their day, just like you would go to the gym, right? If you have a personal trainer, they're going to have you do an exercise, and then they're going to have you take a rest interval, Oh, yeah. And that rest interval is going to be time they're gonna say, Okay, we're gonna take a two minute rest before we move to the next exercise. If we can normalize making knowledge work, a, an engagement and a recovery period, in the same way, we could transform the way that organizations work, but we can't do it. Without managers who understand this concept, and the normalization of cultural habits and cultural values, we tend to look at organizational culture values, they might say something like, you know, respect or, you know, work hard, have fun, whatever the organizational values are, well, part of respect is being able to cultivate a culture of respect that says, I respect your well being. And because we respect your well being, we want to be able to cultivate that time that's necessary for you to feel well because not only will you feel well, but feeling well results in you being well which results in a more productive workforce. So if the man your manager, or the organizational culture is like push, push, push, push, go, go, go, go. You want to help reinforce Hey, you know, push, push, push push actually leads to a burnt out workforce that leads to attrition and a lack of retention in your organization. And so it really does impact the bottom line. So
We can keep talking about a virtual reset, okay. But we are going to virtual reset at this moment. And we are going to take a pause and say thank you for listening to us in our and this out of office. As we talked a little bit more about why it's important to reset spaces that you exist in virtually to reset your mind to decrease stress so that you are a better human being for this world and for any company that you walk in. That's right. So don't forget to take your pauses, put them in your calendar, and get some air cover for your managers. And if you're a manager, provide the air cover for your people and start to try this on start to try this practice on as you move into this upcoming series of work weeks or whenever our next podcast goes out. We'll check back in with you then. And you can tell us how your pause for the cause.
process is going at your company. All right. Thank you
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
