Remote online meetings have been a norm for most organizations, especially those with offices spread across different locations. But the biggest challenge of hosting the remote online meeting is making it more productive and keeping the attendees more engaged.
This article discusses practical steps that can make these meetings more productive.
How to make your remote online meeting more productive
Business meetings are a crucial part of an organization’s daily schedule. With participants in different locations with different time zones, you need to consider all these when planning to host a productive remote online meeting. Here is a step-by-step guide to help you host a productive, engaging, and fun.
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Choose the right software for your meeting.
The first step to hosting a productive remote online meeting is choosing the right software for the meeting. Remember that not all teleconferencing software offers the same features; some offer better features than others. For instance, some allow many people to connect to the same meeting and do so many things, such as viewing your image and video apps and even choosing parts of your screen. On the other hand, other software only allows a few participants to attend the meeting and don’t offer screen sharing.
This is why you need to research the best software with the features you need before choosing one that suits your business’s needs. The most common teleconferencing software includes Zoom, WebEx, Skype for Business, Adobe Connect, and go to Meeting.
Once you have selected the right tool, you can select a reliable remote collaboration tool such as AI assistants for meetings to ensure everything goes smoothly. With the right tool, you can be sure that your remote online meeting will be as seamless as possible, and you will no longer have to deal with bad connection, poor sound, and video quality.
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Have a well-defined meeting agenda in place
It is no secret that a meeting without a clearly defined purpose will waste the participants’ time and make them more confused. Organizing a remote online meeting requires a lot of effort. Hence, it is not good to waste more time during the meeting. You need to make everything easy for everyone by creating a well-defined agenda that includes all the issues that need to be discussed in the meeting. In addition, you need to specify the role of each participant. If possible, send the meeting agenda to the participants 24 hours before the meeting kicks off and ensure they receive it. Of course, Having a well-defined agenda in place is it acceptable as it can make your participants more engaged, get all the participants on one page, and save time.
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Establish clear objectives
You can easily deviate from your initial purpose in your remote online meeting and start discussing irrelevant material. You can easily prevent this by setting clear goals and objectives within your agenda and then try sticking to those objectives as much as possible. Your objective can be the things that must get done. If you notice that the meeting is deviating from your objectives, you can guide attendees back to the main point. This can help you keep the meeting on track and make the participants feel like they are a part of something more important.
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Take into consideration every participant’s time zone and schedule.
If you have participants from various geographical locations, chances are that they have different time zones. So you must ensure that you accommodate their schedules to make your meeting more productive. Starting the meeting too early or late can pose several problems for some colleagues. They will have to work outside their regular office hours or have a longer workday. This can reduce their productivity, cause poor performance, a lack of motivation, etc.
The best thing you can do to overcome this challenge is to use email calendars and consider the time zones of your participants when scheduling your remote online meeting.
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Appoint a co-host
If you are the one organizing the meeting, your job is to concentrate on the presentation. So the best thing you can do to make you focus more on the presentation is to appoint a co-host. A co-host can mute and unmute attendees, display videos and images, troubleshoot, monitor video thumbnails, maintain security, and more. With the co-host handling these important tasks, you can devote your energy to ensuring the meeting is more effective and successful.
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Start and end your meeting on time.
One of the best ways to ensure that your remote online meeting is productive and effective is to ensure that you start and end it on time. This way, you will be able to maintain the attendee’s attention and focus. But if the meeting drags more than it should, the participants will lose focus and may even forget whatever was discussed.
Hi there! I’m Sethu, your go-to guy for all things tech, travel, internet, movies, and business tips. I love sharing insights and stories that make life more interesting. Let’s explore the world together, one article at a time!
