Teams who are far away may stay on the same page and get things done by having virtual meetings. But if the organization isn’t perfect, these events can rapidly become monotonous or feel far away, which could turn people off. When you’re not in the same room, it takes a lot of organizing to get people to actually take part.
This post gives good tips for how to run virtual meetings that will keep your team interested. Employees can be more responsible and keep on task with tracking tools.
Problems with Having Virtual Meetings
It might be hard to lead virtual meetings because you have to work more to keep everyone interested and connected. These are four significant challenges that can make it challenging to have these meetings:
Not getting signals that aren’t words: You miss out on little things like body language, subtle facial gestures, and short smiles when you don’t see someone in person. It’s much tougher to tell how people genuinely feel.
Attention Drift: It’s easy to lose your train of thought when you talk to someone online. A click can quickly lure your attention away, and multitasking can sneak in, which makes it tougher to stay focused.
Dependence on Technology: We depend on technology to do things, but it may also cause difficulties like screens freezing, audio dropping, or connections malfunctioning. Every hiccup pauses the flow and can make it tougher to stay on task.
Uneven Voices: Some people on the team say a lot, while others don’t. This makes interactions feel out of balance and sometimes just as bad.
Make your virtual meetings more fun so you can get more out of them.
When done well, virtual meetings may be a terrific way to work together, remain on goal, and receive ideas. Here are some helpful and intriguing things you may do to improve your remote meetings:
1. Make sure you know what you want to do and how you’re going to do it.
What matters most to a virtual meeting being successful is having defined goals and an agenda. Research has shown that meetings could be as much as 30% more productive if they had a defined agenda. This keeps the conversations flowing and ensures everyone is prepared.
2. Incorporate interactive elements to engage the public.
If you want to get people excited about virtual meetings, you have to do more than just talk to them. Polls, chat boxes, and breakout rooms are examples of features that can make it fun. You are able to grab perspectives from people right away with a quick poll, and small breakout groups let you have focused, dynamic talks. Ask questions that don’t have an obvious answer or ask certain people to participate in. Passive listeners become active participants when they feel that they are being seen and heard.
3. Meetings should be short and to the point.
Meetings that are short and have a clear purpose are often the best. After about 45 minutes, people’s attention spans start to wane, so keep meetings short and to the point.
If you can’t have a lot of brief check-ins, try to break up longer meetings into smaller ones rather than having one long one. You care about everyone’s time and keep the energy up by finishing shortly after going over the important points.
4. Make a place for people to work together
Make the gathering feel welcoming from the start so that everyone will share. Start with some quick news updates or a fun icebreaker to make everyone feel at home. People are more likely to speak up when they feel comfortable.
Tell your team that you not only hear what they have to say, but you also care about it. If some voices seem to be taking control, gently bring in the quieter ones to even things out. It’s not easy to feel open, especially online, but it’s worth it. What happened? A gathering where everyone feels welcome and ideas can flow more freely.
5. Get a tool to monitor your employees
An employee tracking tool such as Controlio delivers you real-time information that can help you execute virtual meetings with greater energy and attention by helping you:
Find Out Who’s Paying Attention: You can tell straight away who’s paying attention and who’s not, so you can make modifications to draw everyone back into the conversation.
Get the Right Length: You can take a cue from the length of your meetings based upon how your team focuses naturally, which will, in turn, help them keep their energy up and their attention sharp.
Timing is Everything: Schedule meetings at times in the day when your employees are most alert and productive.
