Virtual meeting platforms like Zoom have become an invaluable tool for keeping teams connected and collaborating while working remotely. And with many offices embracing flexible work, online meetings are here to stay.
While there are many advantages to virtual meetings – accessibility, reduced travel time and cost, the ability to bring together teams no matter where in the world they are based – there are also drawbacks.
The well-known issue of Zoom fatigue is real. All of us struggle with being on screens all day and endless Zoom meetings don’t help. However, there’s also a more basic issue with getting people to engage and participate when meeting online.
The flow of conversation simply doesn’t work the same way via a device as it does when we meet in person. It is also very easy for people to give in to the temptation to multitask – knocking off some of their to-do lists or responding to emails while half-listening to the meeting.
For leaders and managers, running engaging online meetings is an increasingly necessary skill. Even if you’re comfortable leading meetings in person, don’t assume that your expertise will carry across to this new format.
Of course, some of the meeting basics remain the same, no matter what the platform is. Having an agenda, only holding meetings if necessary, keeping to time – these principles apply to Zoom meetings as much as to offline ones. But there are also some specific tricks that can make your online meetings smoother and more engaging.
1. Reduce Distractions
One of the reasons we find online meetings so exhausting is that our brains are having to process a lot of input. As well as the content of the meeting itself, we have each person’s video feed, perhaps a share screen with a slide deck, the chat – and that’s even before we consider the notifications from other programs that might be popping up on our screens.
Help people focus on the meeting and reduce Zoom fatigue by training your team on ways to cut back on some of these distractions. For example, when they join the meeting, they should close any non-essential programs, including their email, and mute notifications from tools like Slack. Just like they (hopefully) would for an in-person meeting.
Where possible, encourage team members to set themselves up in front of a neutral background to minimize visual input. You can also ask people to hide their own video feed. Seeing our own faces on screen is very distracting and many of us spend as much time looking at ourselves as paying attention to other participants.
Right-click on your video and select ‘hide self-view’ in the menu. Other people will still be able to see you, but you won’t see your own face any longer.
It’s also ideal to have as many people on the meeting as possible use their camera. This prevents the meeting from turning into a conference call. As long as they are comfortable, encourage everyone to have their camera turned on throughout the meeting. It is much easier to collaborate when we can see one another’s faces.
Finally, ask people to mute their microphones when they aren’t speaking to reduce background noise. Although it does lose some of the spontaneity of the conversation, this also prevents people from speaking across one another, which Zoom’s audio can’t handle.
2. Break the Ice
There’s always that slightly awkward few minutes at the beginning of a Zoom meeting while you are waiting for everyone to join. However, used right, this is a great opportunity to break the ice and help people feel comfortable, leading to better participation once the meeting gets properly started.
Greet people by name as they enter the virtual meeting and introduce some general topics of conversation so that you aren’t all sitting there in silence. Keep things light and positive to help people settle in and feel comfortable talking on camera.
You don’t need to do a formal icebreaker activity, but it does help to have some topics prepared in case conversation dries up. If you know the participants well, these topics can be a good way to catch up briefly (i.e., “How was that baseball game on Saturday?”, “Make any interesting recipes recently?”, etc.). Or if you’re less familiar with the group, these can be as simple as a poll (“Savory or sweet for breakfast?”) or easy questions that anyone will have an opinion on (“What are you bingeing on Netflix at the moment?” “Any recent movie recommendations?”).
You can use the chat too, allowing more people to get involved and establishing this as an option for communication during the meeting.
Just try to avoid a situation where one or two people are dominating the pre-meeting chat while everyone else sits in silence. When this starts to happen, bring other participants into the conversation by asking their opinion directly.
This is also a great opportunity to set some ground rules for the meeting (if your team doesn’t already know). Explain how you’d like people to use the chat, reactions, and ‘raise hand’ function. Also, let people know if the meeting will be recorded.
Then set your expectations for the meeting to the group. What are you hoping to achieve and what is the role of the other participants? This helps give the team a framework to work from as they provide contributions.
3. Encourage Participation
Once you’ve allowed a few minutes for people to get comfortable and chat, it is time to start the meeting itself. Hopefully, participants will already be feeling more engaged and willing to speak up, but there’s more you can do during the meeting to encourage everyone to contribute.
Firstly, plan the flow of the meeting in advance. Ideally, each item on your agenda should be introduced by a different person to keep the meeting interesting and allow as many people to speak as possible.
It is also a good idea to assign one or two people to each topic in advance. Prime them to be ready to respond with follow-up questions, thoughts, or ideas to get the conversation started. Once someone has taken the plunge, others are more likely to follow.
If speakers are sharing their screens during their introductions, encourage the other participants to put their thoughts and questions in the chat during the presentation phase. Then you can pick up on these ideas and ask the person to elaborate further on camera. Many people find it easier to respond via chat than to jump straight into talking on video, and it also means you can pick the most relevant and insightful responses. When time is tight, using the chat in this way can help you to keep the conversation on-topic.
You may need to ask a question in the chat yourself to get the ball rolling. Keep these simple and open-ended, so that others can respond with their thoughts.
Encourage participants to make use of emoji reactions too. This is simply a way to get feedback when others are speaking. You can also encourage quickfire responses by asking people to pop an emoji in the chat.
Zoom’s whiteboard feature is another great way to encourage participation and make a record of your meeting. Assign someone to manage the whiteboard and have it open during the discussion phases to capture action points and ideas. Ask everyone to add their comments.
Once the meeting is over, the whiteboard remains active as a tool for continuing collaboration.
4. Take an Active Role in Managing Conversations
Virtual meetings tend to require more active chairing than in-person ones because of the need to mute and unmute. In larger meetings, instead of leaving it open to the person with the fastest fingers to speak first, ask everyone to use the ‘raise hand’ function when they want to speak and then wait until they are called upon.
This also helps you to ensure everyone has a chance to be heard. It is easy for people who are more confident communicating on-screen to dominate the discussion, so one of your roles as the leader is to make space for others to have a turn at the mic. You never know what valuable insights might come up.
In larger meetings, make use of Zoom’s breakout rooms to facilitate discussion, which is easier in smaller groups. Assign people to a room in advance so there’s no waiting while you deal with the admin in the meeting. Ask a different person from each group to summarize their main points after every breakout session, so everyone has a chance to speak.
Keep an eye on people’s body language too, especially in longer meetings. Although this is harder to do over Zoom, you’ll still see signs of non-engagement if participants’ attention has drifted away. This is an indicator that you need to change things up a bit – call on a new speaker, take a short break, or even ask everyone to stand up and stretch for a few seconds.
Remember – shorter is better. This goes for any type of meeting but is particularly relevant to online meetings since we all spend so much of our time in front of screens already. If your meeting is headed off on a tangent, bring it back on topic and make a note of the discussion point for consideration at a later date, so you don’t go over on time.
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Done right, Zoom meetings are a fantastic way to keep your team connected. As a leader, it is your role to facilitate discussion, involve participants, and make sure no one is left out. A little bit of pre-meeting preparation and thoughtful use of Zoom’s extra features can do wonders for making your online meetings productive and engaging.