Cologne (TEH) – Micro on, camera on The coronavirus crisis has given many Germans a completely new experience. As they are forced to work in their home office, contact with colleagues via video conferencing is maintained and the effects of this cultural change should not be underestimated. Colleagues who still seemed to be sewn to their jackets in the office suddenly wear hoodies. The living room decoration reveals more about a manager than all employee interviews. And you need a completely different discipline. “If I have 15 minutes of attention in a normal situation, there are maybe five in a virtual format,” warns Phillipp Grundel. It is important: conciseness, what is striking: everyone deals differently with this situation. And yet there are patterns of behavior among colleagues that can be observed again and again. A somewhat pointed overview. The stranger to technology: The video conference programs are now quite easy to use. The stranger to technology, however, always finds it difficult to do this again and again. He speaks to his colleagues for minutes, even though his microphone is muted, but talks about the upcoming lunch at home when everyone can hear it. Besides, he doesn’t care how his image section looks. It is not unusual for him to look into the camera from an angle so that his nostril is well-staged.
The technology critic: In contrast to the technology stranger, the technology critic knows the whole set of video frills well. Above all, he is concerned with self-protection – he wants to know the enemy. He has major data protection reservations against the video apps used – above all the zoom that is currently so popular. He also wonders why all this is necessary since there are telephones. When he expresses his concerns in the conference, the colleagues nod their heads in understanding – and continue to confer. Then the technology critic again sticks his laptop camera with a Post-it.
The chatter: gestures, facial expressions, body language – all of this is difficult to convey in a video conference. Techniques for enclosing particularly talkative colleagues are therefore undermined. In other words, you can’t tell someone with a sharp look that they’re talking about their head and collar. The chattering victim regularly falls victim to this toxic situation. He finds the new video conferencing world extremely liberating. After all, you can check emails on the side.
The communicative: In the home office, the boundaries between private and professional blur. Some get along with it quite well – and some don’t. Someone is the communicator. In the office you only know him from the hallway, now you can find out in a video conference en passant how it is about the digestion of his cat or his hairline. It gets too private much too quickly. He also tends to have no problem allowing insights into his untidy stall. Put away a half-empty bottle of wine? Oh, it works that way.
The director: For many employees, the video conference is the last social highlight of the day. For the director, this means above all: Showtime! He sits perfectly aligned in the exact center in front of an accurately arranged bookshelf, which is suitable for giving other colleagues a guilty conscience in terms of size and content. Sculpture art is also occasionally on display. The producer also knows that the same applies to the screen as it does to the street: stripes make you slim, diamonds irritate.
Breaks About Woman Going To The Toilet During A Video Conference Report in The New York Times About Video Conferences in Corona Times
