I don’t (won’t) have the camera on. It’s not my choice that I’ve been working from home for the last 18 months or so.

Mandatory cameras is a hard “no” from me. I didn’t sign-up for reality tv!

Beside which, I use a standing desk and my laptop is on a low shelf so with the lid open, the camera would be pointing directly at my groin. I suspect some of my colleagues would have an issue with that 😅

Some weird voyeurs on this thread! 😳

You know these programs have virtual backgrounds, right?

Yes, whats why i said “Plenty of people at my work either don’t turn their camera on or blur a background.” (which you took the time to quote) I have never bothered with it as its simply easier to turn my camera off.

It ain’t onlyfans.

Maybe it is, which is why their work camera is off.

Internal, who cares so long as they are interactive.

In a meeting with a client – on for solos and on for the lead if in a room together.

I’ve never had my camera on, I’d rather not start now. Folk that skive at work are going to skive at home.

It’s been said (coming from a technical, science role) what is the purpose of the 3x 30 minute meetings per week, for the staff involved? Are the staff you are worried about engaged (do they contribute each meeting and do they respond) cos if they are, then you don’t need to see their faces. I would 1-2-1 ask if anything in particular that means they don’t want the camera on – but from the perspective of – can I improve their work situation / wfh setup? Not with the thought of keeping an eye on them. I understand some methodologies might have meetings every morning, a 5 minute stand up. If you are taking 30 minutes I would expect significant content or I just turn off.

As a manager I am surprised you aren’t trained with regard to labour law and human rights law and the right to privacy. Lots of reasons not to be on camera including bandwidth, own privacy, children in house, have they been given a camera by your organisation? But the main reason may just be that the meetings are not perceived an efficient use of their time. I understand it’s frustrating if people are multitasking. That’s up to the manager to make the meetings efficient and useful for everyone involved.

Work system generally can’t handle video, especially not when in our office. This means my video is a distraction to others as I am usually sat outside up a hill, in the woods or in the tractor if it’s raining.

Forcing cameras on is going to be counterproductive. Encouraging cameras on may work and if it does, great.

Most people are being forced to work from home. While it my have its upsides, it has plenty of downsides and I’m not sure making people use a camera in their own home is a good thing to do. Having you camera on is different from seeing each other in a physical meeting.

I work for an organisation that explicitly tell us that quite a lot of stuff is mandatory… for some that’s fine. For others it just makes them rebel. The rebels don’t always correlate with people who don’t do a good job. Fortunately they don’t tell us that cameras on is mandatory.

There are lots of good reasons why people don’t use cameras. One of them is energy use and the associated climate change impacts.

I hate video calls. You realise how ugly most people are as their face takes up the entire screen. In person you get better overall picture. Less uglyness.

On a side but related note.

During a teams call does anyone run a sub chat window where you message other people in the call and try to distract them/ stir up some bickering/ get them to laugh, comment on their backgrounds etc and generally take the piss?

And I you are on camera in an office meeting etc subtly duck out of frame to pick something up and sit up in a different item of clothing?

Most people are being forced to work from home

Corrected. People turn up to work, if they put in effort it’s all good. Don’t expect them to be happy and engaged on work having drunk the company look aid.

The fact you have resistance shows they don’t want to so you are upsetting your team for your own insecurity.

If your needing screens on for team cohesion your doing it wrong IMHO.

We do some with. If its more than 5x of us I’d rather have them off.

There are lots of good reasons why people don’t use cameras. One of them is energy use and the associated climate change impacts.

Bingo…… That’s the best excuse I’ve heard for I’ve not put clothes on today so I’m not turning the camera on…..

I don’t really care if you turn the camera on..

But if you came out with that shit…..I’d be a bit more aukward about it.

Like zammo just say no. It won’t offend.

But if you came out with that shit…..I’d be a bit more aukward about it.

Why is that shit?

I may be wrong but we have been led to understand that video conferencing is much more ‘carbon intensive’ than audio calls.

Assuming your doing your audio on a phone then perhaps.

If your laptop’s already running that’s a big elastic band holding that reason in place …

It’s not the laptop though is it?

https://news.mit.edu/2021/how-to-reduce-environmental-impact-next-virtual-meeting-0304

We have a “cameras on” mandate for meetings and we’re pretty strict on it for small meetings, larger ones less so.
I think the approach I’d take (and have taken) is asking them individually if there’s a reason they’ve chosen not to have their camera on.

Your logical fallacy here is “begging the question.” You’ve assumed the conclusion in forming your statement. Let’s try that again:

“I think the approach I’d take… is asking them individually if there’s a reason they think it’s necessary to have my camera on.”

I am micro managing at the mo. I inherited the team and don’t think they are quite cutting it from a productivity perspective – which they know.

Then cameras, or any lack thereof, isn’t your primary concern. You think your team is shit, you’re not gonna fix that with a webcam.

I can see it from both angles, it can arouse suspision but it can also make the employee feel vioated. Edit: especially if its a fubar management meeting that no one apart from the owner of the meeting gives a damn about.

I tend to think in this situation, you should manage by exception. So if an employee is performing poorly by other, more tangible metrics, then there is cause for concern.

Expectation of my team is that anything longer than 30 mins is camera on, anything less is by choice but should be cameras on unless you’re traveling, in an airport etc.

If your only regular contact with them is those regular 30 mins meetings then I’d politely ask them to be present, via camera.

I’d politely be telling you to get knotted with a side conversation around managing expectations.

Many people now have had their introvert dreams answered (me included) and can get a huge amount done through a few simple direct messages – which removes the need for a range of actual meetings.

This.

I don’t get the shite mithered out of me on a continual basis. It’s bloody brilliant.

There’s a couple of reasons why you’ll not see me on a zoom meeting.
1. I’d have to take the bit of tape off the camera.
2. Seems our company laptops are so old, we can’t run zoom on them anyway!

Moot point really as all through lock down, team leader only proposed it once. Ended up having to use the wife’s Chromebook.

I don’t get the shite mithered out of me on a continual basis. It’s bloody brilliant.

I can’t begin to explain the number of pointless meetings I’ve ‘attended’ that could just be solved by a 2 line email.

I’ve actually been reprimanded for looking visibly irate in meetings, as my upper manger said – sometimes you just have to get people round the table… but for what? to waste an hour of 25 peoples time?

Anyway, that’s why I don’t work in IT any more.

I am micro managing at the mo. I inherited the team and don’t think they are quite cutting it from a productivity perspective – which they know.

Since when has micro management made anyone productive or made a team member feel good..?

For me the subtext of micro management is someone who’s an absolute control freak so work takes twice a long while they decided which solution they have come up with is the most right.

Pretty early doors we had an agreement of cameras on, plenty of ways to hide background etc

When you all worked in the office did you sit there with bags over your heads?

When you all worked in the office did you sit there with bags over your heads?

Being visible in the office (or in the meeting room) is not the same as being on camera. This isn’t about me, because I don’t mind the camera being on, but being “watched” for a long period of time without visual clues as to who is actually looking at you is unbearable for many people, and there is no point mandating it unless genuinely necessary. Don’t do it for a manager to feel in control.

If you are going to mandate it, what is the penalty for not complying? And is that really a path you want to go down?

Not having an answer to the “Or else what?”, that is backed up by the policy (HR etc) is a recipe for ending up in a worse position than you are now.

Oh screens on constantly ?

If I call a colleague I put my camera on, its only polite.

Same in meetings cameras on, usually you can tell if it’s a constructive meeting by the number of people who finish the meeting with camera on!

Is this about having a camera on 9-5pm?

No. It is about being in a meeting with multiple people… you have no idea who is looking at you at any moment, you just see people looking at the screen (or not), you have no idea if they are looking at you (unlike a physical meeting). A one to one call is different.

Same in meetings cameras on, usually you can tell if it’s a constructive meeting by the number of people who finish the meeting with camera on!

No, all you can tell is how many people did something that obviously wasn’t paying attention to the meeting. The rest were either highly engaged or just watching YouTube/Netflix/Pornhub whilst you slever pish in the background. You will never know which of those they are if they aren’t engaging with the meeting.

My experience of actual Big Important Meetings is that sod all gets done. People agree to do things that they then spend the next meeting explaining why they failed to do it (a bad boy always did it and ran away) and 3 weeks and 3 meetings later you’re still no further forward and either just do it yourself or escalate it to the lazy gits manager having wasted 3xn man hours achieving sod all. Cameras make no difference as you still can’t grab them by the back of the head and smack them off the table either way (HR don’t like that sort of coaching).

Daily catch ups don’t need cameras, just engagement.

During a teams call does anyone run a sub chat window where you message other people in the call and try to distract them/ stir up some bickering/ get them to laugh, comment on their backgrounds etc and generally take the piss?

We migrated from Skype to Teams last year and I wasn’t aware that this was a thing until there was an ALMIGHTY fuss when someone sent a rolly-eyes emoticon, intended for their mate, to the entire audience of an address by one of the illustrious, infallible senior directors.

Oh how we laughed! 🙂

If I call a colleague I put my camera on, its only polite

What???

What did you do before the invention of web cams or smart phones? Refuse to take a phone call and walk around to their office instead??

No, I’m with them there… I much prefer a video call when dealing one-to-one with a colleague. I always ask first though via a written message.

When you all worked in the office did you sit there with bags over your heads?

Not relevant. Put it this way, would you invite all your work colleagues over to your house for a meeting without tidying the house up and sending the kids & pets out of the way? 😅😅

I’m not sure if this has been covered, but enforcing cameras-on would be a hard-no from me. In this ‘WFH’ context, when you ask someone to turn their camera on you’re asking them to invite you into their house, Teams background or otherwise.

A little story for you…

At my last place of work I managed a number of software developers, and I had a good relationship with all of them (I.e. mutual respect for each other’s craft, a personal enough relationship for there to be “bants”). I was holding a team meeting, and one of the staff had their camera off. I teased her a little and asked her to turn her camera on so we could all see each other’s faces. She switched it on and behind her was her unmade bed and a clothes rail with everything she owned on it. She looked clearly embarrassed and I was mortified for asking her to invite us all into a personal space that she was already having to share with a desk and two 24” company issued monitors.

Some people live in house-shares and are working from their bedrooms. Some people live with vulnerable people. Some people just don’t like being on camera. If they’re not engaged you’ll find out pretty quickly, camera or otherwise.

In bigger, round-the-table meetings, I’d often sit with my eyes closed anyway. Not only did I find it easier to concentrate on what was being said, I think you can tell a lot by simply listening to the tone of someones voice. I can’t say I ever found tele-conferences a chore either. Once you knew who was on the call, you could distinguish them easily enough by their voice. There was simply nothing to be added by seeing their faces as they talked.

I’ve worked remotely for years. Getting on for a decade.

I think it’s a little different having chosen a remote role, over being forced into one. I think in choosing one, there’s a reasonable expectation that you have an appropriate working space, and so having a webcam on shouldn’t be a hardship[0]. I can see that if you’ve been dumped into this place, and you’re in a shared space, or forced into your bedroom, it might be uncomfortable to have a camera on – and that’s more likely to apply to younger team members.

That said, there is value in seeing people – it’s often easier to tell if people are struggling from visual cues and to take action early. I’d definitely *encourage* people to have their cameras on *some* of the time.

Unfortunately, your phrasing is a bit telling, and your focus doesn’t really seem to be on employee well-being, so much as not trusting your team. I think you should try to work on that.

[0] That said; I still turn mine off for large meetings, if I’m eating, if I need the cpu cycles/memory for something else, if I feel like it

Put it this way, would you invite all your work colleagues over to your house for a meeting without tidying the house up and sending the kids & pets out of the way?

Yes?

Well, in so far as I’d invite work people round like they were friends, anyway. Anyone sticking their nose in the air because I have cats or haven’t washed up today isn’t welcome to start with. Beyond that, sure.

Is this really just me? Why do you all put up with this crap?

Saccades

Internal, who cares so long as they are interactive.

Always a good rule of thumb.