The End Of WFH: How Zoom-ed Out Are You After Two Years?

We’ve been living in a world of Covid-19 for almost two years now. During this time, the nature of work as we knew it changed. Where face-to-face client and colleague meetings, and business travel used to be the norm, video conferencing apps like Zoom and Microsoft Teams are the new way we communicate.

- Ken Wong

The Big Change To Our Workspaces

For Francis Tan, Business development manager at an international logistics company, Covid-19, Working from Home (WFH), and video conferencing calls a vast array of different emotions to mind.

“When we first started WFH, my wife and I thought it was the greatest thing ever! We could roll out of bed and be at work in five minutes. But a few months in, we soon realised that we needed some big changes. We each needed our own workspaces, desks, webcams, headphones, and mics for video conferencing, and most importantly – space,” Tan said.

Throw in Home Based Learning (HBL) for their 11-year-old son, and there were three people competing for space to work, connectivity, and devices to work on.

Tan’s company was willing to give employees a one-off WFH allowance to offset some of the costs, but his wife’s SMB employers couldn’t. Fortunately, their son was able to use an old tablet for his HBL assignments, so they didn’t need to spend any money on that, but the family still ended up spending their own money to make WFH a proper reality.

But despite a few false starts, it is increasingly looking like we will be returning to the office in some form or another.

As we now reach a new normal for work, we are at a point where we’re suffering from the occasional bouts of cabin fever and missing human contact. Even technology helping us keep in touch like Zoom is giving us what is known as Zoom or Video Fatigue.