By Jon Clark, managing partner at Moving Traffic Media, a New York digital agency offering SEO, PPC and Amazon marketing services.
getty
Did you know that as of 2022, 26% of the United States workforce works from home? That’s a lot of people! While working from home has many benefits, communication can be a challenge. Many people dread virtual meetings. They feel awkward about speaking to their boss via computer screen. There are inefficiencies that can arise, as you lose track of time or try to cover too many topics in one virtual meeting. With that being said, let’s take a look at how you can host a more effective remote meeting.
1. Stop hosting meetings just for the sake of it.
One of the biggest issues is that a lot of employers are hosting meetings purely for the sake of it. They feel that they need to have a meeting every Monday, and everyone has to be involved.
When you take this approach, you waste precious time and devalue your meetings. Instead, host meetings when you need to have them, i.e., when there is something important to discuss, or you’re starting a new project.
Also, you don’t need to invite everyone to every meeting! Generally, the fewer people, the better. Think about who really needs to be present before setting up a remote meeting.
2. Choose a virtual meeting tool with a lot of care.
There are many virtual meeting tools available for businesses today, so take the time to choose one carefully. Think about what’s going to be right for your needs:
• How many people usually attend a meeting?
• What sort of features are important for you?
• How often will you be holding meetings?
• What other tools do you use that you would like to integrate with the meeting software?
These are the sort of questions you should be asking yourself to figure out which conference solution is going to make the most sense for your business requirements.
3. Share an agenda with attendees before the meeting.
Another tip that I live by is sharing an agenda for the meeting before it takes place. There are a number of benefits associated with this.
Firstly, it helps to keep everyone on the right track and ensure your meetings don’t end up drifting off into other subject areas. Next, it enables your team members to get prepared so that you can have a more efficient meeting. It can also ease any anxieties that remote team members have about the meeting. They know what’s going to be discussed, so they can prepare and also rest easy knowing there won’t be any surprises.
4. Start your meetings when you say they’re going to start.
Let’s say you send out a virtual meeting invitation to your employees with a start time of 10 a.m. on Tuesday. However, you don’t jump on the video chat until 10:15 a.m. Guess what? You’ve just wasted 15 minutes of your employee’s time. Not only is this unproductive, but it’s frustrating for your remote workers as well, who will feel like you don’t value their time.
Of course, there are moments when life’s unexpected occurrences get in the way. If this happens, make sure you inform your employees that you’re going to be late.
It’s also a good idea to establish automated meeting reminders. For example, you could notify your employees 24 hours and an hour before the meeting, so that they don’t forget to join the video chat. Meetings can easily slip people’s minds if they are not reminded.
5. Establish proper etiquette for your meetings.
Just because your meetings are being held virtually doesn’t mean that etiquette should be thrown out of the window. Everyone will feel more comfortable if there are some guidelines in place for how meetings should run. For example, should microphones be muted until it’s your turn to speak? If you have a set way of hosting your meetings, they’ll run a lot more efficiently, and you won’t have any unexpected issues along the way. Get everyone on the same page as quickly as possible.
6. Get into the habit of recording your virtual meetings.
This is a good habit that not enough business owners are making the most of. Recording your virtual meetings offers a whole host of benefits. For one, you’ll be able to share recordings with any employees who weren’t able to attend. Also, people can go back over the meeting footage if they forget something.
7. Make meetings fun.
We tend to think of meetings as being mundane and boring, don’t we? It doesn’t need to be this way—they can be fun!
For example, you could decide to do a “fancy dress” meeting once in a while. Keep it simple, as you don’t want your team members feeling like they need to go out and spend money on a costume. You could also decide to treat your team by ordering everyone a coffee delivery with a slice of cake for during or after the meeting. Little touches like this can go a long way.
8. Get feedback from your employees.
Last but not least, the most important people in any meeting are your employees. All businesses are different. They have different structures, different matters to discuss and different characters. Because of this, it’s always vital to get feedback from your team.
Create an open and honest environment wherein people feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and feelings with you. Ask employees for suggestions or if they feel something isn’t working when you hold company meetings.
So there you have it: These eight strategies can help you host more effective remote meetings. If you follow the advice provided above, I believe you’ll have an engaged workforce who looks forward to their meetings rather than dreads them.
