Zoom CEO shares some tips for remote workers

They create an application to escape from meetings by Zoom 2:04

Editor's Note:

Eric S. Yuan is the founder and CEO of Zoom.

The opinions expressed here belong exclusively to their author.

Read more opinion pieces at cnne.com/opinion.

(CNN) -

Early in the pandemic, Zoom became a vital part of many people's lives and livelihoods almost overnight.

In just a few weeks, use of our platform increased exponentially, with hundreds of millions of meeting participants relying on Zoom to stay connected with their clients, colleagues, family, and friends.

We feel, and continue to feel, incredibly privileged to help so many people move on with their lives.

Even as our working population begins to get vaccinated, high usage rates have persisted.

And many workers feel the fatigue of participating in a constant stream of video meetings each day.

The ways Zoom brought us together this year 1:28

As someone who has spent many days and nights at Zoom over the past 12 months talking to people from all over the world, I can understand it.

It's incredibly difficult to jump from an in-person and social work environment to a world where we only see images of faces on a screen.

My personal record is 19 Zoom meetings in one day.

It is a record that some will be able to break, but I admit that I had a hard time going through it.

• Zoom's leading role during the pandemic and security and privacy concerns

Like everything in life, moderation is essential, and when Zoom was founded 10 years ago, the intention was never to completely replace in-person interactions.

After all, the pandemic has shown how fatigue, especially from video meetings, can affect productivity, job satisfaction and work-life balance.

So leaders must find ways to make meetings more manageable while employees continue to telecommute.

This would be the new way of working after the 1:46 pandemic

Some advices

Here are some of my own practices for limiting stress from high volume videoconferencing meetings:

• Take scheduled breaks away from the computer.

• Schedule meetings of 25 or 55 minutes (or even try to go down to 20 or 45 minutes), or end meetings early so everyone has a break to mentally recover between meetings.

• Use chat or email instead of a meeting.

• Try disabling the display of your own image to be able to see the faces of your colleagues, and so that they can see yours, without having to see yourself.

• Set up a "no internal meeting day" to give yourself and your employees a break.

  At Zoom, we've been doing it since the end of last year and our employees love it.

• Encourage employees to set limits around their personal time.

  Although there are exceptions to be made for a global workforce, leaders should not encourage evening and weekend meetings.

Of course, everyone's preferences and circumstances are different, so there will never be a one-size-fits-all solution for remote work.

Since the pandemic began, we have learned that people experience meetings in different ways.

A recent study, for example, found that women experience meeting fatigue more than men.

One reason is that women are less likely to take breaks between meetings.

These types of discoveries highlight the importance of meetings being customizable and flexible, taking into account the preferences and experiences of all demographic groups.

It appears with kitten filter before virtual cut in Zoom 1:35

Different ways to combat fatigue

My colleagues, CFO Kelly Steckelberg and COO Aparna Bawa, find and fight fatigue in different ways than I do - and with each other.

Kelly likes to go for a walk during some of her meetings.

Aparna believes in putting wellness at the center of her life and work style, scheduling screen breaks and power naps whenever possible.

By recognizing that we all have different experiences, we can grow together and create a new future of work that is comfortable and fulfilling for all.

• The challenges of remote work for companies

I hope that once we can safely return to a corporate face-to-face work environment, people will be able to better calibrate the balance between face-to-face and remote work to suit their preferences. The pandemic has shown that telecommuting can also provide many benefits, a hypothesis that many were beginning to test even before the events of last year, and I believe that our experiences with the pandemic will accelerate the shift to the future that lies in somewhere between working totally in person and working totally remotely. Zoom recently commissioned an economic analysis and survey from the Boston Consulting Group according to which companies surveyed expect more than a third of employees to telecommute after the pandemic.And a 2020 Boston Consulting Group survey of employee sentiment showed that more than 70% of managers surveyed are more open to flexible work models than before the pandemic.

• 90% of employers say remote work has not affected productivity

The future of Zoom

My hope is that Zoom can help provide the technological foundation for this new future. We are partnering with some of the world's largest companies to help them reimagine their processes and provide the tools they need to adapt to a 'work from anywhere' model. We are working on features such as virtual receptionists for offices, which would reduce direct contact when workers return to physical locations, and AI-enhanced smart gallery views, which create a gallery view of attendees meeting. in the room so people joining remotely feel as much a part of the meeting as the participants in person, making the hybrid experience more seamless.And we're also excited about what Zoom can offer in terms of supporting new jobs and remote use cases across the entire workforce, creating new opportunities for everyone.

Zoom's leading role during the 16:31 pandemic

We all deserve to have the flexibility to work in the most productive way for our preferences and beliefs.

I am committed to making that happen for Zoom employees and our customers, and I encourage all business leaders to do the same.

TelecommutingZoom