Enhance the productivity of your virtual team meetings with these 10 tips
The role of virtual meetings increases each year. Between 2020 and 2022, virtual meetings grew from 48% to 77%, and the global video conferencing market grew from $6.62 billion to $7.26 billion. This means that online conferencing has become integral part of any workflow. What are the main benefits of virtual meetings and why do employees prefer them over face-to-face ones?
- Virtual meetings are less stressful.
- It is easier to present to a group online.
- Virtual meetings tend to be more focused and efficient and as a result save valuable time.
- Virtual meetings allow everyone to participate regardless of their physical location.
- Help to reduce harmful impact on environment due to minimized business travel.
- Less schedule hassle as participants can join from any location.
- An ability to record such meetings enhances transparency and knowledge sharing.
- Safer for health alternative to face-to-face meetings.
10 tips to enhance virtual meetings productivity
These 10 tips will help you make your virtual meetings productive and engaging:
Use appropriate collaboration tools. The right tools with noise suppression, quality video and audio, an ability to share screen, record meetings and exchange messages in a group chat will significantly increase productivity of any online meeting. Virola corporate messenger offers everything your team needs to start a meeting with a click and take the most out of it.
Start with a personal connection. Foster personal connections to build trust and transparency in your team. Let participants see information about one another and communicate in the meeting chat room not only during the meeting but before and after it. You can start various discussions on such communication channels to raise interest to the topic and upcoming event.
Make sure your Internet connection is fast and reliable. The slow Internet is incredibly distractive and cannot be forgiven in the modern world, especially if you are hosting a virtual meeting.
Sit at a table or desk. While working from home it is hard to find the right balance between personal and business. However, lying on the couch during business meetings is unacceptable, thus make sure you are dressed appropriately and sit at your desk.
Check your speakers and microphone before the meeting. It is important to make sure that you can hear everything well and your microphone is of high quality. Otherwise meeting participants will waste their time on solving your technical issues and testing the sound quality.
Use screensharing to make your presentation more interactive. By sharing your screen you will make the presentation more interactive and will let the participants get the most out of it. Generally, the brain processes visual information faster than auditory information. By enhancing your video virtual meeting with visual materials, you will keep participants engaged all the time.
Keep your meetings short and sweet. Setting time limits is important to keep the meeting focused, productive and prevent participants from getting disinterested. If you run regular meetings, then they should not exceed one hour. On the other side, if you plan an event, then plan it meticulously and keep it no longer than three or four hours.
Encourage two-way communication. Two-way communication in the form of questions and answers will ensure that your meetings are productive. Participants can share their opinions and ask questions either during the meeting or in a group conversation. You can also offer them to leave feedback and fill out the post meeting survey to ensure that everything went smoothly, and all participants took the most out of it.
Craft an engaging agenda. An engaging and detailed agenda can serve as a blueprint for a productive virtual meeting. It will help to keep the discussion focused on key topics and will eliminate off-topic questions.
Take care of meetings security. It is important to prevent uninvited guests from attending your business meetings. Virola corporate messenger makes such meetings secure by allowing only group participants to join them. Moreover, with the help of flexible permission settings it is possible to restrict specific actions like sending messages or recording meetings.
Summary
By following our tips for successful virtual meetings, you will reshape your online conferencing culture and increase productivity. The right tools and strategies are now much more than a mandatory gathering. With the help of Virola corporate messenger you will make your virtual meetings more interactive, productive and secure. Just try it out to see how everything works for your team.