Virtual Meetings 101_ How to Keep Your Remote Team Engaged

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many businesses, particularly brick-and-mortar shops, have transitioned from performing their duties in-person to accomplishing their day-to-day operations on online platforms. Now that workers are urged to work remotely, their workdays involve countless virtual meetings and conference calls.

Working from home may be convenient and comfortable for some, but now that the living and working spaces of your employees are now merged into one, the boundaries between their work and home can get blurry. Work-related issues can easily get interrupted with personal concerns, which can get stressful and may even lead your workers to burn themselves out.

Holding virtual meetings and conferences can get challenging since your workers can get distracted by their environment. Fortunately, there are some creative ways to help you keep your employees engaged during your Zoom calls and meetings:

• Prepare an agenda and send this prior to your meeting

Every meeting, regardless if it is held in-person or online, must be productive and organized. If your meetings do not help you accomplish your business goals, then your employees will get discouraged to participate and think that these sessions are better off as emails instead. 

To ensure the productivity and effectiveness of your virtual meetings, create an agenda and share it with your employees beforehand. This will give your meetings a clear direction, which can help you reduce the time for your sessions so you can focus more on addressing pressing concerns. By giving your team the chance to prepare, you and your workers will be able to stay on track, contribute more to the discussion, and discuss important issues. 

Your agenda should include the schedule, estimated length of the meeting, and topics that require discussion. You may also indicate the reasons for talking about the said topics and your expectations from the participants, such as feedback, suggestions, and possible solutions. In addition, you may encourage them to write down their questions and concerns in advance. 

• Supply your team with wireless chargers

While staying off the phones during virtual meetings should already be a given as a sign of respect to everyone, you may still find yourself reminding your team to set their phones aside every once in a while. To help keep your employees stay focused and off their phones, you may consider giving them wireless chargers. This way, they can stay motivated to keep their phones out of their sight and charge them instead during meetings. 

• Create “happy hour” sessions

Not all virtual meetings and conferences should be rigid, cold, and stressful. Create a warm online environment where you and your employees can freely share experiences and exchange ideas with one another by conducting “happy hour” sessions. This can help your employees look forward to having virtual meetings and promote a better work-life balance.

Conclusion

Since the pandemic, the way people work and do business all over the world has changed, including how meetings and conferences are held. Many have shifted to the online world and have been striving to grow their business on various virtual platforms. By following the tips mentioned earlier, you can keep your remote team motivated and engaged during virtual meetings despite the distance.

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