There are now three times as many remote jobs as there were two to three years ago. Fifty-eight percent of Americans work from home at least one day a week, and over one-quarter of U.S. employees work from home all of the time. Ninety-seven percent of Americans who work from home would recommend it to others. Many find that remote work makes them happier and more productive. Nevertheless, there are plenty of distractions at home that can disrupt engagement in virtual meetings. In addition to virtual meeting branding & customization, here are some techniques to keep your team’s attention.
Making an Agenda
It is easier for team members’ minds to wander when you seem to be meandering from point to point without making connections between them. Not only that, but they might feel like you are wasting their time by going off-topic and talking about things that do not seem relevant. You can prevent this by planning out what you are going to say before each meeting.
You don’t have to write out an entire script for the meeting. That could also be boring for your team members, listening to you read to them for a half-hour or longer. Just write out an outline of what you want to say and summarize the main points that you want to make. In addition to letting you upload your own office background, the virtual meeting software that you use may let you input your agenda into it. You can either show it only to yourself for your own reference, or you can display each point to your team to help them follow what you are saying.
Having an agenda prepared ahead of time also helps prevent you from forgetting to cover something important.
Staying Within the Time Allotted
It is important for you and your team members to meet virtually from time to time in front of your free Teams backgrounds and touch base with one another. Nevertheless, your team members’ time is valuable. In addition to the work they have to do for you, they also have personal obligations at home. Therefore, you should give them an idea of how long each meeting is going to last and stay within that time frame. To show respect for your team members’ time, you can plan meetings to be a little shorter than they would usually be. Instead of an hour meeting, you could do 45 or 50 minutes, or shorten a half-hour meeting to 25 minutes. Employees appreciate the consideration you show for their time.
Take Advantage of Interactive Features
When you plan your agenda, you should budget some time for team members to give feedback. However, if you have a large group, or a lively discussion gets going, you may be in danger of going over the time limit that you set for the meeting. You may have to wrap up the meeting before everyone has a chance to speak. In this situation, you can encourage team members to post any further comments in a chat or on a message board that others can read at their leisure.
Encourage your team members to have respect for one another and avoid distracting them by using professional backgrounds for virtual meetings.