Recognizing the inappropriateness of generally asking someone to turn on their camera during a small group discussion or client meeting in which they are contributing, I'm wondering if signing up for a fully remote role silently stipulates that you'll make a reasonable attempt to be "visible", and turn your camera on?
Edit: I guess I should add though, I have never encountered a problem with the former situation, ie never been in a small discussion where anything is weird or we miss something because someone's camera is off. I have been in the latter situation, where people were told they have to sit and watch hours of administrative or "vision" type presentations and keep their camera on.
And I don't have to because I don't work with clients or take roles in which me being on camera for more than 5 minutes during the entire duration of the role is a requirement.
Between voice and screen sharing, we can handle all business without monitoring each other's 2-dimensional faces.
I don't begrudge others to have their cameras on, but if someone else has it on, I'll turn mine on.
If you are in an all hands type of meeting or some other very large meeting where you are just listening passively (while doing other work in the background) then it is okay to have the camera turned off.
I always have my camera on for the former type of meetings but only occasionally for the later. That seems to be an unwritten convention based on what I've observed... at-least at the company where I work.
What's the best way to decline if someone requests you turn your camera?
Should you turn your camera on?
It’s up to you. Generally I think people like to see that each other’s expressions.
Should you stipulate someone else turn their camera on?
Etiquette not withstanding, only if you made it a requirement in the job description.
My trouble is that webcams don’t last long for me, my laptops have defective USB 3.0 ports. I think someday I want to set up a mini tv studio at home but never get around to it.
For most other chats, or daily stand ups, camera off. But, on that matter, I would encourage you to have a decent photo in lieu of the default user avatar.
If the goal is to “build rapport” or “read subtleties in body language” - it seems other ways of interacting or opening up “extra channels” of info might be less stressful. And this could be a ripe place for experimentation.
Some things that have developed to close this gap:
- richer and richer emoji usage in chat?!?
- ad hoc audio features like slacks huddles. No pressure to appear on camera and no awkward pressure to fill a 30 min block.
- just general shitposting!?
- team metaverse style in browser games!?
These are initial, lame ideas. But they I think are all trying to solve this problem unconsciously.
Random longbet: in 10 years being on a video call with camera on, looking nice, paying attention, with the perfect office in the background will seem like stiff formalwear.
But there are times when it's helpful, and I think it's appropriate for more structured meetings. I think a blanket policy either way would be a mistake.
However one of the perks of being a male is that society only ever expects me to take a shower to be presentable. So I'm totally cool if a colleague wants to leave the camera off even if it's a 1 on 1.
The best approach is just to talk about it with your team, and choose your own culture.
For me, that obligation is to see your face on the meeting, because I would see your face on a real life meeting in person.
Why is that important, well, we can't substitute facial non verbal expressions by :) :( :/ etc...
I often present and give lectures, now remotely, and it's difficult to just watch your screen and slides, and you don't see reaction of the people who listens to you, not only audio reaction, but non-verbal, facial reaction.
So, for me it's a basic thing, if you seat at home, work, remotely, the bare minimum is to turn on your camera, especially if you work in fully remote international company where you have never meet your colleagues.
I get all my work communication done through voice and shared files. Am I missing information that would otherwise be encoded in implicit facial expressions? Or in the absence of faces, is that being conveyed to me anyway, through voice and explicit verbal means?
The results are unsurprising. Being able to see the speaker's face improves comprehension. People rely so heavily on visual information to decode speech that there's a phenomenon known as the McGurk effect; if you set up an experimental rig so the brain receives visual information suggesting one sound but auditory information suggesting another, the visual information often takes priority over what was heard in decoding the speech.
(As someone hearing impaired, this is, pardon the pun, blindingly obvious to me. Sometimes, whether I can understand the words of a talking head on TV depends entirely on whether I look at them or not. But hearing people rely on lipreading too. From what I've read, usually far more than they're aware.)
It's rude otherwise. I don't like attention so much that I only have a few pictures of myself as a child, none as an adult. But you have to put your preferences aside when it comes to business and be professional.
We had someone join our team and in every team meeting they would have their camera turned off while the rest of us had it on. I felt like they weren't part of the team, I could barely remember their face from the interview. Far from the eyes, far from the heart. So when the probation review came I gave them a thumb down, turns out others had the same experience and that person was gone.
You wouldn't hide yourself in the toilet and eavesdrop a meeting if you were in the office. This isn't something that needs "adding to the contract". That's so far from common sense that it hurts me physically reading such comments.
For external workers rules are a bit different, but within the company I don't really want to see people, waste of bandwidth. We have our pictures tied to our accounts anyway.
Team meetings with cams are mostly a waste of time, in productive ones someone is probably sharing their screen anyway.
I do like to work in my underpants from time to time but I understand that some people need to be professional. I believe some expectations are rude.
