According to the National Institute of Statistics (INE), in 2019 the moderate upward trend in people who worked from home continued, going from 4.3 percent to 4.8 percent. However, after the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic in mid-March last year, which forced the implementation of home confinement for months, the number of teleworkers increased by more than 200 percent .
Thus, in mid-September 2020 it was estimated that more than three million people in Spain telework regularly, with a volume 216.8 percent higher than that registered in 2019, when the figure barely reached 915,800 professionals.
After the increase, experts have doubts about whether teleworking would continue to be part of the new normal , although it is true that it has already been implemented permanently in a fairly high number of companies.
As became clear during confinement, group video conferencing became an essential tool for many companies, since they offer the possibility of holding group meetings with many users, optimizing both time and organization to the maximum.
However, a recent study by Microsoft warns of the risks of backlogging meetings without pause .
The study was carried out with 14 participants, who participated for the first time in four consecutive half-hour meetings on different topics. The following week, they participated in videoconference meetings of half an hour each, interspersed with 10-minute breaks, during which time they practiced meditation.
Using electroencephalography sensors , the scientists were able to study the participants’ beta activity (or, in other words, their brain rhythm). This showed that the brain activity of users who had been meditating between meetings had decreased during the break, and they enjoyed meetings without stress , unlike those participants who linked one meeting to another without rest.
On the other hand, the experts also analyzed the rates of asymmetry of the activity of the frontal alpha band of the users, which correspond to the difference between the activity of the left and right alpha wave in the frontal area of the brain.
According to the results obtained, the positive rates would correspond to those of the participants who meditated between meetings. And the negative rates, however, corresponded to those who had chained meetings.
Microsoft adds automatic pause times feature in Outlook
Given the problems caused, Microsoft announced the implementation of new configurations and adjustments in Microsoft Outlook , in order to facilitate the configuration of automatic break times between successive meetings.
Thus, both individuals and companies can now specify in their default settings whether virtual meetings should be shortened by 5, 10, or 15 minutes. Now, for example, 30-minute meetings could be shortened to 25 minutes, and 1-hour meetings to 55 minutes, so that they automatically incorporate a five-minute break.
