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Vitality management for the hybrid office
Vitality Management
This year, employee resilience was the main theme of the Dutch National Vitality Week. By carefully managing their own well-being, employees are expected to promote their own resilience. Resilient employees are able to recover quickly from major efforts and setbacks in the workplace and in their private lives. Their resilience is supposed to keep their absenteeism rates low.
And everyone worked happily ever after…?
The Dutch advisory body SER (Social Economic Council) takes a completely different approach in its recent Working Conditions Vision 2040. This influential document zooms in on the working conditions. Employers are called upon to manage the risks associated with the psycho-social workload faced by employees. They are strongly advised to invest in prevention and thus protect the mental health of their employees.
Video communication is not very healthy
Human evolution has poorly prepared us for the communication modes used in a virtual work environment. Our mental and social-emotional well-being are under pressure because we cannot rely on our natural communication habits from the physical, offline world.
Changes in facial expression, gaze direction, and eye contact are crucial means of communication during a face-to-face meeting. At the office, they help us show our intentions and emotions, and to build mutual trust and connection with our co-workers, project team members, and visiting clients.
Unfortunately, we cannot rely on these visual signals in a virtual work environment. In a video call we do not know what others are looking at. We fail to read faces properly and to build trust with our gaze and the expressions in our eyes. Eye contact is impossible.
Mutual trust therefore becomes vulnerable when working remotely and in a hybrid work environment. Misunderstandings and conflicts easily arise. Feelings of human connection are becoming scarcer. We regularly experience loneliness despite the many virtual social interactions. Our mental and social-emotional well-being are coming under pressure. Our personal resilience is tested relentlessly.
Our personal resilience is tested relentlessly
Energizing video calls with authentic eye contact
A new video communication device provides a practical solution. The Dutch company eyeQ has developed an innovative product that supports our natural communication habits during video calls. You can now deliver authentic eye contact in any call with colleagues, project team members, and clients.
How this is possible? With eyeQ on your laptop you can look at the face of a video contact on your screen while simultaneously looking into the camera. This is possible thanks to a built-in camera in combination with a mirror that you can also look through.
No artificial intelligence is used. Your contacts will see the true you including your authentic eye contact, not some artificial avatar version of you.
Video calling now becomes much less tiring, and feels more natural and authentic. Virtual meetings become less mentally taxing. You can now protect each other’s resilience and promote effective and humane collaboration within your virtual office environment when both of you use eyeQ.
Building productive connections in your video calls with clients also becomes much easier. Without draining your mental energy.
Want to know more? Get in contact with us or visit the home page to find more information.
