How to Stay Connected with Your Remote Teams using Virtual Meetings?
Blog: NASSCOM Official Blog
As the COVID-19 crisis unfolds, people across the world are necessitated to work remotely, and staying connected to the team is becoming difficult for people. Virtual meetings are the perfect way to communicate with team members. Today, organizations across the world are using virtual meetings to enhance team collaboration and share their thoughts. Virtual meetings are becoming imperative for team leaders to keep track of their members’ works.
Traditionally, people use voice calls as the dominant form of virtual meetings. Nowadays, video calls are gaining popularity as they help people to communicate and meet their colleagues virtually efficiently.
However, virtual meetings are not entirely free of challenges. Lack of stable internet connection and other disturbances can increase difficulties in efficiently communicating with others. During these uncertain situations, it’s every organization’s responsibility to ensure that their employees have everything they need to work remotely and participate in virtual meetings.
Make sure every team member has their camera on
Traditionally people relied more on audio conferencing. Recent studies show that video conferences are 2X more effective than audio conferencing. Video conferences allow people to communicate with other team members efficiently. This eventually increases team collaboration and overall productivity. In addition to driving team collaboration, video conferences help team leaders ensure that people are focused and engaged. In audio conferences, people may do multi-tasking. But a video conference restricts people from doing other tasks rather than attending the meeting. So, as a team leader, make sure to conduct video conferences virtually.
- Connect with your people with genuine concerns
In a virtual meeting, connect with your people with genuine concerns. You must ensure to keep your team members connected throughout the meeting. Virtual meetings must be a platform for your team members to share their thoughts and express ideas. Let everyone get a chance to interact with each other during virtual meetings. Please encourage them to share their thoughts and appreciate new ideas. This shows that you value their inputs and opinions.
In offices, you organize enough team activities to enhance team collaboration. The same must be done in virtual meetings. If not in official calls, you can conduct other virtual meetings for your team members and encourage team building activities. It keeps employees happy and ensures higher productivity. If you are conducting meetings with people in other countries, consider their time zones as well. Make sure that all members have their video on while conducting virtual meetings.
- Understand your employees’ needs and requirements
While working remotely, it’s challenging to stay connected with your employees. However, virtual meetings eliminate this challenge. In a virtual meeting, make sure that you communicate with every member. As a team leader, make sure to ask your team members their concerns and issues. Poor network connection and other background noises may create disturbance during team meetings.
Rather than speaking harshly to your employees, try to figure out their issues while working from home. Make sure that all your employees have a laptop or system and a stable net connection. If not, make some alternative arrangements for the same. This eventually enables team productivity and allows efficient communication. Moreover, make sure that they have their headsets and microphones for participating in virtual meetings effectively.
- Give opportunities for team members to share their views
Although your main motive of the virtual meeting is to track works’ progress, make sure that you allow your employees to share their thoughts and innovations in between. It’s difficult for a leader to organize a meeting efficiently, but it is not impossible. Give each team member two to three minutes to raise their concerns and share thoughts.
Don’t allow any team member to dominate the meeting; give equal opportunities for everyone in the team. In this way, you can collect inputs from every team member and ensure equal participation of members in the team meeting. Don’t make it too dull. Make the meeting interesting with some new information or input each day.
- Preparation is the key
Don’t randomly go and organize the meeting. Not down all the points that you have to discuss in the meeting. From the prepared checklist, consider all the points in the meeting. Also, don’t allow the meeting to last for longer.
Set a specific time limit to discuss each point and give others time to express their views. Moreover, note down all the points discussed in the meeting and send a meeting minute to all the attendees. Even if you miss out on any points, include them in the meeting minutes.
Summary
During these challenging times, virtual meetings are among the significant ways to stay connected to your team. Virtual meetings enable organizations to enhance team collaboration and keep track of the progress in the works. Besides, virtual meetings allow attendees to share their thoughts and discuss their challenges with team members.
This eventually helps organizations to ensure business continuity and improve productivity during these unprecedented times. Team leaders can also gather inputs from every member of their team through virtual meetings. Make sure you conduct the meeting with your team members regularly and stay connected with them.
The post How to Stay Connected with Your Remote Teams using Virtual Meetings? appeared first on NASSCOM Community |The Official Community of Indian IT Industry.
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