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I could list a whole list of reasons but I won't, and because I actually had the opposite question that I wanted to ask to this question: Make it mandatory to turn camera on in video meetings at work?

But basically my main argument around companies that make it mandatory or at least a very high expectation for employees to turn on their video camera at work meetings while working from home include:

  • it is known that Zoom fatigue can have negative impact to employees, especially if they have a large amount of online contact with fellow workers
  • not everyone is able to set up a private space in their own home dedicated to work, or able to avoid interruptions while working from home
  • companies send workers home because they are unable to provide the adequate space or environment to work from the office, so it is not always the employee's choice to work from home
  • if companies are allowing employees to work from home, they should allow them to work in a way that suits each employee's preferences to optimise their productivity

My question is, what are examples of policies at your work place that promotes this type of practice at work? I am looking for companies that are international and therefore have to cater for people working in different countries.

Michael Lai
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    Just asking for examples of policies doesn't seem like a good question for this platform. Is your aim to get a long list of different policies, or are you maybe trying to solve a specific problem? In that case it would help to be more specific about what kind of policy you are looking for. What are you aiming to achieve? – Helena Feb 07 '22 at 22:44
  • @Helena in the question about making it mandatory to turn on the camera, the OP asked for "How do I ask my manager to make camera mandatory in video meetings without making it look like a complaint?" So I thought it was better to find examples of policies rather than simply looking for suggestions, but maybe that's a better type of question for this forum? I am happy to make edits as required. I just want to ask a question for the opposite scenario. Thanks :) – Michael Lai Feb 07 '22 at 23:09
  • @StephanBranczyk thanks for the feedback. I have updated the question accordingly. – Michael Lai Feb 07 '22 at 23:17

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I'm a freelancer and have multiple clients from multiple different countries. In my experience video etiquette is all over the place. One client is "always on", another is "always off" and others are mixed. No one has ever shared an official policy with me or even just mentioned a preference. I think in general people are allowed to do this as they like and over time a certain "standard" develops for the company by the simple mechanism of "I'll just do whatever everybody else is doing".

One of the downsides of "always off": I have worked pretty closely with some people where I have absolutely no idea how they look like.

Hilmar
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