This can help the facilitator drive closure without the risk of excluding an introverted participant’s views. My research suggests that only around 50% of meeting time is effective, well used, and engaging — and these effectiveness numbers drop even lower when it comes to remote meetings. Research-based insights can improve your remote meetings and keep participants engaged.
As a former journalist, he’s always looking for new topics and industries to write about and explore. Ranee has worked in the SaaS industry for nearly ten years. She loves working with, learning from, and helping develop effective leaders and is willing to share her thoughts through words. Outside of work, you can find her dancing, hiking in the mountains, or reading in a cafe. Participation can be in the form of a question-answer session.
Planning a virtual meeting
Hubstaff lets you create projects and tasks within those projects. This way, you can see exactly how much focus time you’re getting. As the meeting host, you’ll want to sign in on time and be ready to welcome how to run a effective remote meeting others as they connect — just like you would for an in-person meeting. Greet your team members, ask them about their day, and act naturally. Recently, there have been increased calls for reducing meetings.
- After the meeting, send everyone the meeting summary, action items, and next steps.
- This way, even though the video might freeze or become unstable sometime, at least you will still be able to hear what your teammates are saying.
- Shy people are hesitant to speak up or don’t use the opportunity to express themselves.
- Let’s commit to fixing our meetings, one meeting at a time.
Depending on the nature of the meeting (video or audio-only), choose the tool that suits your specific needs. Here are the crucial factors to consider when picking a virtual meeting tool. The members of a remote workforce are in different locations and time zones.
Engaging Virtual Conference Ideas
Instead, the secretary or the facilitator should clearly record the meeting’s event. It should state the tasks related to the meeting and the people responsible for them. Minutes are essential because they record the meeting’s proceedings, what you’ve decided, and the people responsible for the action items or tasks from the meeting.
Folks who are new to remote meetings can be frustrated if the format isn’t effective for the intended outcome. No one wants to feel like they’re not heard or their time is wasted. On a remote team, you’re less likely to be caught tracing your hand in your notebook, but the chances of having ineffective meetings only increases. Video conferencing apps often have time limits on free plans, meaning every wasted minute is precious. It’s even easier to talk out of turn when you can’t read body language in a virtual meeting.
Meeting Resources
By framing agenda items as questions, you have a better sense of who really has to be invited to the meeting. Once the questions have been answered, you know when to end the meeting — and you can easily gauge if the meeting has been successful. Organizing and running virtual meetings can feel daunting as you look to improve engagement.
So, in an ideal scenario, all big announcements should be made at the start, and topics that are likely to cause arguments or a lot of back and forth should be planned for a standalone meeting. The easiest fix to this is to have fewer meetings, but that’s not always possible. After the meeting, send everyone the meeting summary, action items, and next steps. It’s always helpful to have the minutes recorded, either manually or through a smart assistant. If the meeting requires a follow-up, discuss it during the meeting and mention it in the roundup.
Be sure to check ahead of time that your chosen solution includes this feature. And if you do want to record the meeting, set a reminder to start the recording when the meeting starts. In a 2019 Doodle study of 6,500 workers, 72% of participants reported that setting clear objectives was the key feature of a productive meeting.
These are platforms that allow meeting organizers to schedule calls in advance, send out mass email invitations with unique access links and call-in numbers. They also enable users to choose how they want to join the call. This type of platform is ideal for larger remote meetings or town halls that host attendees from various locations. If you’re finding remote meetings a challenge to organize, motivate, and collaborate effectively with your team, this article’s for you.