How to decode office body language while working from home

In addition, we had all day to figure it out, picking up little clues from the walk to fill our coffee cups or the minutes we spent stirring before the meetings. Now, our work interactions are reduced to a 15-minute look at the lives of others through Zoom calls or a series of emails without additional context. Trying to read body language through a screen has become another exhausting part of the workday.

“We feel like we have a hand tied behind our back,” says Traci Brown, a Boulder-based body language speaker and author.

There are still a lot of ways to read nonverbal cues if you know where to look, says Mrs. Brown. Start with people’s movements during video calls – a colleague crossing his arms may signal that he is closed for an idea or that he has some information that you do not consider, she says. An accelerated or slowed-down flash rate can mean stress. And pay attention to the eyebrows. Eyebrows pointing down to the middle of the nose indicate anger; eyebrows in a neutral position, but curled in the middle point to sadness, says Mrs. Brown.

The approach is not infallible. That colleague with folded arms might just be cold. Consider body language the advice you need to research more deeply to find out what is really going on with someone.

Much of our analysis of others in the workplace happens unconsciously, the result of years of evolution. Now we must either ignore our previously useful assumptions or be confused and wrong.

“The gestures we’ve made all our lives continue, but they don’t make the same sense they once did,” says Jeremy Bailenson, founding director of Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab and a communications professor at the school.

Take your eyes off it. Looking directly into someone’s eyes for more than one to two seconds is interpreted as intimacy or a precursor to conflict, says Dr. Bailenson, triggering our fight or flight response. Now we fix our eyes on the Zoom all day. And our on-screen images are generally larger than the typical personal office space would allow. The perceived closeness can make us feel uncomfortable or convince us that we are considered more respected by a meeting participant than we actually are, he says.

Tony Caleca, administrative partner at the consulting and consulting firm from St. Louis, Brown Smith Wallace, was accustomed to his colleague Steve pushing his shoulders forward and slipping into his chair when he was ready to share during a personal meeting. But on the video, the movement was more dramatic.

“It was a little alarming at first,” says Mr. Caleca. “I felt him coming to you.” Mr. Caleca began to remember that the picture was just that Steve was getting ready to speak.

Valeria Klamm, a practice growth manager at the same company, found herself frozen on video calls almost daily due to a poor internet connection. When the frame includes a wrinkled eyebrow, colleagues may receive the wrong message.

“We were worried that maybe she was offended by something I said,” says Kelly Peery, a recently called colleague in which everyone laughed at a common joke, except for Mrs. Klamm, who was silent and angry. It was just another freeze.

“I should just have a sign that says, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,'” said Klamm, 32. “Damn, how long have I been frozen?” I’m here. I was engaged. How long did it seem like I wasn’t engaged? ”

Written communication can be just as full. People are hampered by everything from the shortness of emails – nothing shudders as an answer that is just a question mark – to the moment.

Erica Dhawan, author of the forthcoming book “Digital Body Language” and CEO of Cotential, a collaborative New York-based consulting firm, suggests puzzled clients ask for clarity if they have a close relationship with the sender and assumes only good intentions if not. Remember that punctuation marks, such as ellipses, are often used differently by the generation – older workers may mean nothing to them, while younger workers read them as sarcastic. Some might love emojis, while others may be puzzled by them.

Developing organizational rules can help. Ms. Dhawan had a currency abbreviation of a health insurance company that denotes how quickly the sender expected the recipient to respond. The inclusion of “4H” in a subject line meant that the grade required a response within four hours.

If something annoying – say, a message that opens with a passive-aggressive “on my last email” – happens three times, it’s probably worth a sincere conversation, says Ms. Dhawan. You can share examples of virtual interactions that have been confusing or worrisome. Or ask yourself if changing environments could solve the problem quickly.

“A phone call is worth a thousand emails,” she says.

Read the digital camera

Avoid being hampered by digital body language, with advice from Stanford professor Jeremy Bailenson and author Erica Dhawan:

Add space: Reduce the size of the Zoom window so that the meeting participants do not look close.

Hide self-view: Watching the whole meeting is not a good way to catch the clues of others.

Pay attention to the changes: If your average boss pivots to use more formal language, something might happen.

Do not overreact: If someone sends you a confusing or slightly passive-aggressive email, assume good intentions. If communication does not affect your ability to do work, you may want to leave it. If something happens three times, it’s time for a sincere conversation.

Write to Rachel Feintzeig at [email protected]