Video conference calls and online meetings have become ubiquitous now that more employees than ever are working from home. These meetings bring a whole new set of challenges and standards that are hard to adapt to. However, having effective online meetings is essential to your company’s success. Here are ways to make your online meetings run more smoothly:
Put One Person in Charge
Online meetings become chaotic if everyone is trying to speak over each other. Putting one person in charge will make it easier to maintain order. Make sure whoever is put in charge understands the technology and can run the meeting smoothly. You may need to do a few test meetings to make sure the person in charge is comfortable with the technology.
Give Everyone a Turn
With everyone online, it can be difficult to tell who has spoken and who hasn’t. Keep a list of people in the meeting and put a mark next to those who have spoken. If someone hasn’t pitched in, give them an opportunity to do so. You can call on the person, or ask a question specific to them to include them in the conversation.
Also, to keep the flow of conversation going, remind people to stay muted when they aren’t talking. It can be easy to forget, but you don’t want your meeting going astray because of someone’s barking dog.
Speak Precisely
It’s easy to let “ah”s, “um”s, and “er”s slip into your sentences. This isn’t much of a problem in person, but when things are already glitchy it can become a real distraction. To remove these delays in your speech, consider using shorter sentences. You can also write down notes of what you want to say to take away some of the natural hesitation.
Following this advice will help your online meetings run more smoothly.