“Workers who communicate with their colleagues mainly through videoconferencing are far less effective at building relationships than when the communication is done face to face, according to a study we recently completed and just submitted for peer review. We also found two important ways employees can overcome the downside of video meetings,” write Nancy Buchen of the University of South Carolina, Wendi Adair of the University of Waterloo and Xiao-Ping Chen, professor of management at the UW.