4 Tips for Improving Virtual Team Meetings

In order for businesses to continue operating during these unprecedented times, organizations had to quickly jump onto video conferencing platforms and try to maintain “Business as usual”. As we know, Zoom became our new office and yet some of us still figuring out where the unmute button is. 

Communicating in the virtual world is very different from popping by to your colleagues’ desk for a quick meeting. When we have an impactful meeting, we feel team synergy. It’s that feeling you walk away (or close Zoom) feeling motivated, in the zone, and ready to tackle the next to-do. 

By now, with the good majority of our lives virtual, we’ve figured out that some meetings are better as emails and that “Zoom Fatigue” is very much real. 

Let’s get back to scheduling meetings that provide a space for team synergy and improve the flow of communication. Here are a few tips to do so!

1. Scheduling 

For the simple fact that employees are not in the same location, scheduling meetings becomes more difficult. Especially if your team members are in different time zones. 

It helps to create a rotation schedule with your employees if different meetings need to be held. Also, have an alternate solution in case an employee cannot attend. Are there any consequences for not showing up? 

If an employee is asked to attend a meeting outside their normal work hours, is there something you can offer in return to show you appreciate their efforts?

2. Have a clear objective and agenda

An agenda is important to have in any meeting and even more so in a virtual meeting to help keep everyone focused on the meeting objectives. 

Outline what you want to discuss and accomplish and ask people to jot down ideas before the meeting of how all of you can make that happen. 

Employees need to know there is a clear objective to the meeting and that their ideas and views are important. 

3. Solicit Additional Topics in Advance

After you have shared the draft agenda ahead of the meeting, ask your employees if they have other topics they wish to discuss. Often, once an employee is aware of the original agenda, ideas percolate on other topics.  

Ask the employees to research the topics ahead of time and be able to make a meaningful contribution when they participate in the next meeting. 

You don’t want your employees to feel blind-sided coming into a meeting by not knowing what it is they are there to talk about. 

4. Discourage being “Just a status report”

If all you are looking for is a status report, this can be accomplished through email or text. Status reports are simply one-sided information meant to be informative rather than a need to be discussed in depth. 

One problem often seen in virtual meetings is that the moderator will do most of the talking and presenting, leaving the other team members out of any discussion.  The same goes for requests for updates from employees. They share their information and then sit out the rest of the meeting not participating. 

Encourage employees to ask questions. Set time aside for employees to share ideas with one another and engage in conversation or debate about the meeting topics. 

Meetings are meant to be a time of learning, collaboration and synergy; not just one-sided information being shared for the sake of it.