I saw a post on LinkedIn this morning by Richard Mulholland about having your camera on in every meeting, including internal meetings that “set the standard” for meeting etiquette.

I will say that if you are invited to a customer meeting and have a key role in that meeting, you should definitely have your camera on, as it is to your every advantage. Eye contact, facial expressions and body language all play a key role in communication, and if your role is to lead or collaborate or persuade, you will benefit greatly from giving your fellow participants visual cues, regardless of any “Camera-on” policies or rules.

However, I disagree whole heartedly that everyone should turn their camera on for every meeting every time.

First of all, no one schedules audio meetings any more. I can’t even remember the last time I was sent an invite with a phone number for a conference bridge.  Everyone sends a Teams or a Zoom link for a meeting because it’s easy and convenient, not necessarily because they need to see your face in that meeting. Not every meeting requires video, but our workplace policy is to use the chosen platform, which means video may not be a requirement of the organizer, but will always be a potential feature of the meeting.

I even put together an outcome based guide to meetings in 2020, during the height of video call madness.

The Outcome-Based Guide to Meetings

Second, we are indiscriminately invited to all sorts of meetings where our presence is optional and not participatory and where we have no clearly defined role. In these meetings, camera on means little.

Third, in companies with “Open Calendar” policies, there is seldom any advance communication before an invite arrives for a meeting. Many times, based on time zones, etc, a request may be able to be facilitated, but may not be convenient for video. It would be unreasonable to expect an employee to go into the office at 3am or to get ready for a call at that time, if their role in the meeting did not dictate it necessary.

I’ll also add that not everyone has dedicated office space at home, many of us working in public areas of our homes (lofts, dining rooms, etc) where our family members may be getting ready for the day and walking through these spaces, making having the camera on difficult at best.

Open calendar also creates “last minute” meeting requests where you may have not planned to be at your desk, but you could support a meeting via audio if necessary to expedite a decision or move a project forward.

I have rallied multiple times for a feature in Outlook that allows you to color code your calendar to show times available for video meetings vs audio only to assist with the culture clash that is created when “Open Calendar” and “Video On” collide, but I haven’t seen that feature… yet. I’m hopeful Microsoft will latch onto it, and then when someone goes into your calendar to schedule a meeting, they can search for times that you’re available for video vs times that you are coded as audio only.

This allows the employee to commit to a certain amount of time slots each week where their camera will be on, and eliminates any confusion or frustration during times when it cannot be.

Finally, many employees have started “time blocking” to reserve time for heads down work or travel between locations. Sometimes, fellow employees or customers request meetings during those blocks. If those meetings include a customer or several other parties, they may accommodate the meeting as not to have several others reschedule or delay, but that accommodation may come at the expense of the camera being off. I believe the value of that should be evaluated on a case by case basis.

At the end of the day, companies that want to implement both “Camera On” and “Open Calendar” policies also have the responsibility to limit the number of meetings people are invited to, clearly define outcomes and roles of the meetings, and respect any blocked time in invitees calendars if they want to truly maximize business value.

In the absence of this joint responsibility, I personally would have to decline about 25% of the meetings I accept if I was required to be on camera every time, which would delay decisions and revenue.

In the end, I agree that there are situations where having your camera on is extremely valuable and required, However, in a culture of “Camera On” and “Open Calendar”, where meeting roles are often undefined, objectives muddy, and video invites overused, I believe an “always on” rule can have an opportunity cost all of its own.