In the wake of continued uncertainty with the COVID 19 virus infection spreading at an unprecedented pace, organizations world over have been reinventing the ways that have been working and interacting within and outside the organizations. Many organizations as part of their business continuity plans and in the interest of safety of their human resources have mandated working either partially or fully from homes/ remotely.

There is also a brighter side to working from home with people saving commute time, spending more time with families and also spending time with activities which took a backseat earlier due to paucity of time.

Working from home also entails challenges of conducting meetings efficiently whether internally or outside of the organizations. There are numerous tools available today to conduct smooth meetings over audio and video conference with certain of these tools even providing advanced features of recording the entire meeting, sharing content and presentation etc.

Tools, however, are merely tools and enablers for such virtual meetings. Making virtual meetings effective is entirely on us. Here are 10 practical tips to make our virtual meetings effective and enabling us to achieve our objectives from such meetings.

  1. Having the right legal software to avoid any software right of use violations;
  2. Ensure access for all attendees to avoid any surprises/ technical glitches at the meeting time;
  3. Circulate in advance an agenda for discussion. As with in-person meetings, an agenda of items to be discussed at the meeting should be circulated in advance for an effective meeting;
  4. Have your expectations from the attendees clear so they come prepared and are able to contribute as expected;
  5. Don’t get carried away and take all the time speaking yourself, give opportunities to all attendees to keep everyone engaged;
  6. Have someone recording/ writing the minutes of the meeting so action items can be tracked and followed up upon;
  7. Seek out for suggestions/ feedback on discussion points to improve engagement and make people feel valued;
  8. Ensure you and the other attendees have adequate lighting around them should you be conducting a video conference;
  9. Ensure there is no background noise with people around so it does not disturb the meeting;
  10. Keep yourself on mute unless you are speaking to avoid any television/ dog barking/ child crying noises etc.

Happy meetings!!!