How To Stop Hosting Boring Virtual Meetings At Work: 6 Tips And Tricks

These days, more and more businesses have become adapted to working remotely. Because of this, hosting face-to-face meetings, large conferences, seminars, and other physical events is no longer a requirement.

These traditional modes of communication have already been replaced by online conference applications. These online conference tools have gained immense popularity in the past few years and have become more crucial to many modern companies.

However, hosting virtual meetings is a tricky process. Establishing and promoting engagement when holding an online meeting or conference is difficult, especially with a team scattered across the globe.

This is all because of the lack of physical interactions and language barriers. Failure to do may cause burnout to you and your employees. But don’t worry because there are ways for you to prevent it.

Now, the big question is, how can you ensure an engaging virtual meeting and prevent virtual fatigue at the same time? To answer that query, below are some of the most effective tips and tricks you might want to consider when hosting virtual meetings at work.

1. Host Virtual Team-Building Activities

Virtual team-building activities are one way to boost engagement when hosting online meetings and conferences. They allow your employees to enjoy and spend their time on tasks not related to their line of work. 

Online team-building activities may increase employee productivity, lower the number of absences among your employees, and boost your company’s profitability rate. Also, such activities can boost the overall morale of your employees, lessen their chances of burnout, and increase their motivation.

Here are some remote team-building activities you might want to try during your next virtual meeting session:

• Virtual Break Room: The main purpose of a virtual break room is to take a break from stressful work duties. Employees can hop in for lunch or coffee breaks, giving them time to catch up on everyone’s life.

• Start The Meeting With Good News: Before you proceed with the meeting agenda, start the meeting with a dose of good news. Talk to each team member and ask them what makes their day great. This is a great way to break the ice and engage everyone.

• Set A Friendly Competition: A bit of competition won’t hurt anyone’s pride. In fact, it helps teams get closer and know more about each other despite their distances. Plus, it helps improve collaboration and teamwork.

2. Create An Agenda Ahead Of Time

If you don’t want to make a mess out of your virtual meetings, then you should create an agenda in advance. An agenda is a tool that outlines all the topics to be discussed in the meeting. It also includes all the fun and activities to be held, like those virtual team-building activities.

Think of your meeting agenda as a roadmap. It should provide all the directions, stops, and goes needed to keep everything organized. Without it, the meeting can hardly proceed as intended. It will be very chaotic, and a lot of time will be wasted. 

Additionally, the meeting agenda should be shared among your team members attending the web conference. This will help them prepare all the things they need to discuss, including some questions that have to be raised and addressed accordingly.

 

3. Start Virtual Meetings With A Small Talk

If getting into social conversations is challenging enough during face-to-face events, you should expect it to be much more difficult in the virtual setup. This is because virtual meetings lack the physical touch everyone needs to engage with others easily.

It’s your duty as the host to make everyone feel as comfortable as possible during the virtual meeting. If that’s the case, you might want to start off with small talk. This is a great way to loosen things up and engage everyone before proceeding with the agenda.

Small talk is effective if there’s a new member on your team as well. Aside from small talk, you can also try other ice-breakers to promote attendee engagement and presence such as:

• Guess That Drawing;

• Name That Tune;

• Pop Quiz;

• Would You Rather;

• Virtual Truth Or Dare;

• Bad Joke Contest; and

• What Do We Have In Common?

4. Make Sure To Get Everyone Talking

You want to ensure that everyone in the meeting will get a chance to speak and share their thoughts. It doesn’t matter how long or short it is, but make sure to keep everything under the scheduled and programmed timeline. 

To do this properly, make sure to give everyone a key role to play. Such roles will help create a sense of responsibility that can help them stay focused and on track. With this, you can be sure that all participants are engaged during the meeting. 

Furthermore, make sure that everyone will get to experience playing different roles during the meeting. This will make them feel valued and important as other members will rely on the task they need to perform.

5. Don’t Invite People Who Don’t Need To Participate

Never invite people who shouldn’t be a part of the meeting you’re preparing. Aside from the fact that it offers no benefit to the meeting at all, it negatively affects the efficiency of the meeting and often results in virtual insecurity.

Inviting only those with significant roles can help carry out the meeting agenda efficiently. It keeps everyone engaged and reduces the likelihood of miscommunication as well.

6. Always Have A Plan B Just In Case

Virtual meetings are so unexpected. You have no idea what technical problems might occur during the meeting, so make sure you have a contingency plan. This will help you ensure that the meeting will proceed as planned, even if some issues occur.

Here are some tips to stay in command of the online gathering despite technical issues:

• Have your mobile devices ready. This will help you stay in the meeting in case of a power outage.

• Create a backup file of your presentation. This ensures you have a spare copy in case the original one gets corrupted unexpectedly.

• Send your presentation to someone who can eagerly present on your behalf in case of an emergency.

How To Stop Hosting Boring Virtual Meetings At Work?

Virtual meetings can be boring, and that’s a fact. But there are things you can do to ensure that the meeting will be as engaging as possible. These include hosting team-building activities, creating an agenda, giving key roles, and more.

• Host virtual team-building activities.

• Create an agenda ahead of time.

• Start virtual meetings with small talk.

• Make sure to get everyone talking.

• Don’t invite people who don’t need to participate.

• Always have a plan B just in case.

With these tips and tricks, your virtual meetings will never be as boring as before.