Cameras: On or Off in the Online World of Business?

Before the spring of 2020, few executives would have ranked the question, “Cameras: On or Off?” as a hot-button issue within their organizations.

But the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting shutdown forever changed the way most knowledge workers interact and work. According to a recent poll by USAToday’s “BLUEPRINT” team, one-third of U.S. white collar workers work remotely all of the time, while another one-third are in a “hybrid” environment, enabling them to work remotely.

This translates into days filled with screens of employees’ faces beaming in from remote locations, powered by platforms including Zoom, Webex, Teams, and others. This technology-driven revolution poses managerial, behavioral, privacy and less-obvious equity issues for organizations. A weighty consideration is whether executives should enact policies or guidelines governing when — or even if — employees must appear “on-camera” when interacting virtually with their colleagues and clients.

There are both pros and cons leaders should weigh when making this decision.

The full article can be found here.