2022 Types of virtual meetings & which one to use NoHQ Remote Work Guides

Your virtual meeting can be a great opportunity to share ideas and gain insight from your colleagues. Now, let’s discuss how to effectively manage things during your virtual meeting. The time managers and employees have individually in one-on-one meetings is important for covering topics that aren’t meant for a group setting, like performance, career goals, or anything personal.

We kept the content sessions short , and we mixed in some interview-style sessions with our client spotlights to keep the format varied. Some of them were mostly working in our software, some were more for participants to share and learn from each other, and some were more traditional presentations. We kept our audience in mind and worked hard to share content we thought would resonate and be helpful. Make time to organize your thoughts and send invitees the agenda for the meeting so they can prepare themselves as well. Giving your employees an idea of what’s coming up can help them jot down any questions they might like to raise in your team meetings, general town halls, and even one-on-one sessions. Verify that the meeting platform has been selected appropriately for accessibility, as described in 3.1 Selecting an accessible remote meeting platform.

Many offices now moving to remote or hybrid ways of working, video conferencing is vital to the daily life of your average company. It allows people to connect with whom they’re speaking, making it a more personal option than teleconferencing. This digital water cooler also gives everyone a glimpse of their communication styles.

What are the types of online meetings?

In-person meetings invite casual chat and promote more relaxed, water cooler conversation. For businesses, downsizing office spaces to meet more hybrid https://globalcloudteam.com/ schemes means meetings effectively cost less due to rent. However, ensuring each WFH employee has adept and working equipment can be expensive.

They communicate and collaborate online and not in a shared office space. Historically, difficult or sensitive conversations happened in person, so we could watch body language and use physical surroundings to create a sense of safety. But we’ve learned over the pandemic that this isn’t always necessary — or desirable. While your instinct may be to hold these meetings in person, several employees have told me they prefer these discussions online. The screen helps them hold their emotions in check, providing a greater sense of control.

To help control noise during virtual meetings, you can use noise-canceling apps like Krisp, SoliCall, Audacity, Noise Blocker, or apps like Zoom with integrated noise-cancelling features. Fortunately, virtual meeting tools have security features to ensure that only those with the meeting’s passcode will be allowed in. You can use such features and assign a gatekeeper to control and monitor who is in the meeting while you are speaking. A productive meeting starts with an excellent ice-breaking activity and an understanding of the people you are dealing with. So first, ensure the right mix of people attends the virtual meeting who can add value to it.

Types of Remote Meetings Ranked By How Hard They Are To Cancel

For instance, if the team can’t come to a consensus within 60 minutes, they’ll put it to a vote or the key decision-maker will make the final call. Knowing in advance how the decision will be reached avoids wasting time. The participants involved are key decision-makers or subject matter experts. For example, deciding on a new hire will only include certain employees like hiring managers.

• You won’t get as much out of it if you’re also trying to check e-mail or scroll through Twitter.
• Not only are more people working from home, but they don’t have much of a choice either.
• Will center around the team gaining a better understanding of one another and furthering cohesion among the group.
• Any light-hearted way to start the meeting can help set the tone of exchange and feedback that you want.
• The time your team has together, whether in-person or virtually, is crucial to keeping everyone connected, engaged, and productive.

Consider adding a ritual or ceremony to your team meetings, like a fun way to start or end a remote meeting. For example, everyone might begin the meeting by saying what they can see out their window every day. This works best for geographically distributed teams, where one person is looking at snow and another at a palm tree. Any light-hearted way to start the meeting can help set the tone of exchange and feedback that you want. As more employees are working remotely, virtual team-building meetings are becoming increasingly important.

Build buzz

However, video conferencing platforms such as Microsoft Teams, Skype, Zoom, etc., let you disable or enable your video. Additionally, send this agenda to all the meeting members beforehand to ensure they are prepared for it. This will help them cover the things they can before the meeting, so you don’t have to spend the discussion time preparing them. Think of interactive but small ice-breaking activities that will set the right mood for the meeting and promote brainstorming and open discussions.

Clients receive 24/7 access to proven management and technology research, expert advice, benchmarks, diagnostics and more. Fill out the form to connect with a representative and learn more. Depending on the culture at your place of work, you might need to set some rules about video and what people should wear.

People usually display some verbal and non-verbal signs of engagement like nodding, agreeing verbally, or sitting on the edge of the seat. But a virtual meeting requires an attentive and careful host to catch them. You can use whiteboard tools like Miro, Stormboard, Collarboard, and Conceptboard for the virtual brainstorm. These apps work the same way that a real whiteboard does in a physical environment. They allow you to multi-task and share the benefits of visual thinking, teaching, and collaboration in a virtual setting. All of this will help you ensure that the remote meeting runs smoothly and that everyone has a share in it.

Employing technology and the internet, this allows people from anywhere in the world to take part in the event. It may utilise a special event website or standard video meeting/ conferencing tools to bring people together. It can be especially beneficial for online events, such as sales conferences or webinars. how to run a successful remote meeting When you consider some of the features available with RingCentral, you can quickly see how communication and collaboration are enhanced. The ability to screen share documents, applications, visuals, and other collaboration tools means that any team member can instantly access the info they need.

No time to read the whole guide?

Commute hassles like finding parking spaces, stopping by a fuel station are no longer necessary. Virtual meetings negate the need to travel and will save you plenty of time that can be utilized elsewhere more effectively. With remote meetings, distance is no more an obstacle, and you can reach out to your clientele in various locations and develop and maintain a healthy connection with them virtually. Furthermore, you can communicate both internally and externally and maintain healthy relationships without the hassle of a commute. The operational expenses such as office supplies, utilities, materials also fall steadily when you conduct online meetings, saving the businesses time and money. Let’s learn all that you need to know to conduct effective virtual meetings.

One size definitely does not fit all in remote work environments. It happens that Gartner employs over 2,000 experts, the vast majority of whom have been working from home for years. And in case you’re wondering, I don’t like to work in monastic seclusion.

There’s a clear difference in goals there, so you’ll need to work differently to arrive at a decision than you would if you were just sitting around brainstorming. Lucidchart allows your team members to work together remotely to create visual data points, including graphs and flowcharts. Cisco Webex is a prime option for hosting global meetings and presentations, particularly when larger groups are involved.

Amy Bonsall is the CEO of Collective, a platform that helps distributed organizations and their people flourish. She co-teaches a course on Designing a Business, hosted by IDEOU. Participants need to be using the same application, and communication is by keyboard inputs – similar to instant messaging. Schedule meetings using our plugins for iCal, Google, or Outlook. Easy integration with any calendar app you use means that meetings scheduled on one app will be instantly synced to your other systems.

Multi-point video conferencing

You can use a tool like Officevibe’s Pulse Surveys to track overall team sentiment and send a custom survey to ask questions on remote work or any other topic. Remote teams A simple platform that tells you how remote teams really feel, and fosters action-oriented 1-on-1 conversations. Provide support for the user to toggle between the standard remote meeting interface and a simplified user interface. This would be particularly useful for people with cognitive disabilities.

Under each, we’re sharing facilitation techniques for running successful async meetings . But, if you prepare ahead of time and ensure that your meetings are well structured, moderated, and well communicated there’s nothing to worry about. Once your virtual meeting is complete, make sure that a summary of all the important points discussed during the call is sent to the participants.

Scheduling hiccups can result in people missing meetings or unproductive participation of unprepared employees. For example, let’s say you are in New York and you scheduled a staff meeting for 10 am. However, virtual participants in Los Angeles may still be asleep at 6 am and miss the hybrid meeting. And a lot of it has to do with how I communicate with other people.

Hackathon/Productive Work Session/Office Hours

Brainstorm sessions are like goldfish, they will fill up as much time as you give them. Encourage any and all ideas and write them on a whiteboard (that’s in view for remote teammates.) The Meeting Owl Pro allows remote teammates to see what’s written on the board from home. You can also take notes in a shared Google Doc and project on the screen for those in the room. Monthly or quarterly progress meetings are a way to check in on initiatives, sales, or whatever goals your team has. Give each stakeholder 5-10 minutes to update the team on progress towards goals, roadblocks, successes, and failures. Leave at least 15 minutes at the end of the meeting for questions and to confirm goals and initiatives for the following period.

They cannot rely on casual encounters or lunch in the cafeteria to cement new relationships. Pay special attention to anyone who is new to the team and is suddenly working remotely. You might need to have more meetings with new workers or set up meetings between them and teammates proactively. Stop the “invite everyone just in case” mentality and invite only those willing to work on a specific task and use the meeting time to get something done. A good rule of thumb is that if the in-person meeting is terrible, the remote version of the same will be exponentially more so.

If you have a meeting with a different group of people than the usual, a brief personal note should be added at the top of the invitation email to let them know about who is requesting a meeting. Start off the invitation with a subject line and make sure to keep it short, simple, and easy to understand. Also, it should have the date, meeting name, and a clue about the type of invite you are sending. It’s a beautiful way to connect the employees and gives them a break from stressful work hours. Whether it’s a quick call, collaboration session, client-related meeting, or for some other reason, all discussions have the intended purpose of serving crucial organizational needs.

Creating accessible content for remote meetings

More generally, selecting an appropriate platform can be accomplished by reviewing the extent to which each of the available options supports the applicable standards identified in this document. The commitment of the chosen platform’s developers to maintaining and enhancing accessibility-related aspects of the software is an important consideration in making a suitable choice. However, there are some situations where online meeting simply won’t cut it.