The wonderful world of the virtual meeting

With almost all of us experiencing the world of online meetings this year… could we work on the effectiveness of them?

For years gone by, we probably only used them to connect with teams, or partners that live and work in other locations. Yet now, it is common to have virtual meetings within your team, especially given that many offices are continuing to work from home.

Firstly, there should be a set of general corporate rules for online conferences that everyone should follow, remember working from your bed (as comfy as that sounds) is not really the place to conduct business, also lets ensure we get dressed (not just pants and a shirt) – this will help to get us in the right frame of mind.

An agenda is the backbone of your meeting, ensuring that your team have it at least 24 hours in advance is also important, this way everyone can prepare themselves for the meeting ahead, and also add anything that may benefit the discussion.

The agenda should include:

  • Main points of the call
  • The meeting structure (when and for how long it will last)
  • List of participants
  • Individual tasks that should be completed before the meeting and presented on the call
  • Any additional documents and/or files that you are going to use in the meeting.

Next is definitely connection, there is nothing more frustrating than a bad connection, and you may miss important bits of the conversation. Ensure you have a good internet connection (I have often been seen wandering around the house ensuring optimum quality) remember, when you have a clear image and sound, it is more captivating!

Make it a point to celebrate something in every meeting. This can be a team success, like a new process improvement or a top placement, employee milestones, Birthdays, or personal goals. Celebrating achievements, no matter how small, are a good way to show recognition, and help your employees feel appreciated.

Many experts agree that 45 minutes represents the best meeting length, making it one of the few fixed variables you can take into account. Oddly enough, it also represents about one-half a human REM sleep cycle. ….. it is also said that very few business meetings achieve anything of value after two hours….. So keep it flowing and to time!

And last but not least, we all want people to feel like a cog in the machine, If you give people the opportunity to influence decisions related to workplace development, rather than just dishing out business goals that are produced in a close-door meetings, they will feel more motivated to achieve them! Try setting goals for the next month together with the team, this will also help employees to be more vested in the company goals.

And that wraps this up….. Until next time!

MK Team