Even though some companies are bringing back workers to the office, there are still many that allow for remote work, even if it is only for one or two days a week. As a result, virtual meetings are still going on quite frequently. One of the challenges of online communications is it can be hard to engage the attendees and make it a collaborative process. Although there are tutorials on how to use backgrounds for google meet, figuring out how to make meetings more collective takes a little more work. Fortunately, there are some tips to help you.
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Purpose of The Meeting
Moreover, you can also prepare an interactive presentation using an online slideshow maker, Intro Maker, that you can use throughout your meeting.
Outlining the purpose and agenda of the meeting helps the attendees focus on the information being presented. If you want people to give their input or strategy suggestions, it is a good idea to send out information about the meeting ahead of time. This allows everyone to think about the topic and come up with ideas that they can present at the meeting. Not everyone is as good at thinking on their feet, so letting them think about it before the meeting begins will allow more people to engage in the discussion.
Collaborative Process
If you want meetings to be more collaborative, do not approach it like a lecture. People quickly lose interest and focus when listening to just one person drone on and on. Aim for an interactive process, where everyone is encouraged to participate. Have brainstorming sessions, where all participants give their opinions on how things could work, no matter how out-of-the-box the idea is.
Meetings are also more engaging and collaborative when you begin the meetings with icebreakers and opportunities for attendees to form connections with each other. Some ideas for this include:
- Ask participants to finish sentences such as “A thing that always makes me laugh is…”, “One embarrassing thing that happened to me was…”. These help participants feel more comfortable with each other.
- Ask everyone what the last book they read was and give them one minute to say what they liked (or didn’t like) about it.
- Have everyone play a snippet of their current favorite song.
To improve engagement, you can also encourage attendees to choose a custom zoom background to represent their mood that day or show where their ideal vacation spot would be.
Shorter Meetings and Frequent Breaks
Staring at virtual office backgrounds and screens the whole time can actually be quite tiring. In fact, most people reach fatigue faster with virtual meetings than they do with in-person meetings. If you hold meetings frequently during the week, they may not be too long to start with. However, if you usually have one long meeting a week, it may be a better idea to break it into shorter but more frequent sessions.
If you are holding a conference or other long session, giving participants frequent breaks will help their attention and focus while the meeting is going on. Aim for 10- or 15-minute breaks every hour to keep attendees engaged in the information presented.
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