Council Post: Don’t Let Your Events Fall Victim To ‘Zoom Doom’

We are collectively Zoomed out. Staring at a grid of faces felt novel for the opening of “Brady Bunch,” but it’s getting tedious now that we’re a few months into a worldwide pandemic. Who wouldn’t trade another “virtual team happy hour” for a cocktail made by someone else in a sleek bar among unmasked colleagues?

Unfortunately, we’re not there yet, but the good news is that there are creative ways to transform a Zoom or Teams gathering into something that feels a little more, well, eventful. 

Smart CEOs are looking for new ways to engage employees and cultivate clients because in this new Corona-driven world, seeing past the screen can mean the difference between solid business relationships versus connections that are suddenly on the blink.

“Zoom fatigue” is a thing (and, of course, we’re talking about all videoconferencing). 

There are some obvious, and not so obvious, reasons why communicating virtually is a poor substitute for in-person face time:

• In a meeting room, there is visual relief. You can look out a window, survey the room, or contemplate the coffee and muffins in the middle of the table. By contrast, when we’re on a virtual call, we’re staring at a screen with no respite. Small faces or slides, either way it’s just a pixelated box. It’s fatiguing. 

• A fundamental part of human interaction is eye contact. If someone is looking away, we can divine that they are bored or maybe even socially anxious and adjust accordingly. There’s a back and forth, a reciprocity. With Zoom, if I’m looking at your face, I’m not looking at the camera. It just isn’t a natural way for people to interact or connect.

• For a presenter, videoconferencing is particularly frustrating because when we’re sharing our screen we get virtually (pun intended) no feedback as the presenter. We’re unable to read the room and adjust, which is stressful. This new normal isn’t normal by any stretch of the imagination. Libby Sander and Oliver Bauman, two professors specializing in organizational behavior and psychology, respectively, discuss the importance of nonverbal cues.

The many events we used to hold for employees and clients — retirement celebrations, employee appreciation dinners, client entertaining, to name a few — have now moved online, and there’s a trend toward making these remote events a little less virtual. 

Recently, we worked with a large technology company that, pre-pandemic, had planned an internal event for 50 employees at a beautiful venue. It was supposed to happen in April, so, of course, had to be moved online. But who wants to Zoom “for fun” after Zooming all day for work? 

We helped generate excitement for the event by adding a surprise component. Before the event, employees were asked to go to a private web portal, where they could select from three themes: Big Night In, Hoppin’ For Joy, or Game Night. 

Each employee’s package was sent to their preferred address, which they submitted securely, and was marked “Don’t Open Until April 3.” The gifts were unboxed during the virtual event, giving everyone a real-time, hands-on surprise – and a shared experience that supplemented and differentiated the remote event. The feedback was incredible.

Virtual event-related gifts are rapidly becoming the most common type of corporate gifting during the pandemic, and the variety we’ve seen is myriad:

• “Party in a box” gifts are great additions to intimate virtual retirement parties and company milestone celebrations to replace the pre-pandemic dinner or cocktail hour that normally would have marked the achievement. In this way the invitees are still “breaking bread together” across geographic distance, which is how humans have established meaningful connections for millennia.

• At a larger scale, summer employee engagement events such as trips and company picnics are being replaced by private gift redemption portals, which allow employees to select between three to six themed gift choices that each have related online experiences. These have been effectively implemented for many thousands of employees at one time.

The takeaway is that although events are being canceled, we still have an innate need for human connection. And interestingly, while virtual meetings make us feel more distanced from each other in the obvious way, at the same time it provides a glimpse into each other’s personal lives that we wouldn’t otherwise be privy to: books on shelves, children crawling into a parent’s lap on camera, the soundtrack of pets or a leaf blower. 

We see companies leaning into this newfound intimacy in the nature of the gifts they’re selecting. For example, spa gifts were atypical a few years ago, but now company leaders are selecting mindfulness and personal pampering gifts with almost every event that involves employee choice. “Family game night” gifts and “popcorn and movie night” gifts are also popular, reflecting a desire to connect not only with individuals but with their families as well.

The pandemic is certainly creating challenges, but on the flipside it is unveiling new opportunities. It just takes getting a little more creative to think outside the screen.

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