Helping to prepare my 13-year-old for another week of virtual home-schooling recently, we found ourselves talking about basic etiquette rules for online classes.
Make sure you’re in front of your computer screen on-time, don’t grunt your answer when asked a question, look presentable and stop hiding Minecraft behind your tabs, were just a few of the lessons he needed to hear.
While doling out this parental insight, it occurred to me that, although these lessons in etiquette 101 would be the same for the office meeting room as they are for the classroom, since none of us have stepped foot into an actual office in such a long time, there’s probably a strong chance we’ve all let our standards slip a little when it comes to virtual meetings.
For example, no-one will know if you’re actually wearing active gear with a shirt and tie. But colleagues will catch on if you always run over on your 30-minute scheduled Zoom slots.
So in order to start the year right, here’s a good practice refresher for virtual meetings.
Over-budget your meeting time
One of the biggest annoyances in today's virtual work environment is when a meeting that was scheduled for 30 minutes is ticking closer and closer to an hour. Now your entire day is affected by that extended meeting.
When planning your virtual meeting, it is always better to over-budget than skimp on the allotted time.
If you don't know whether you will be able to accomplish all of your meeting goals in 30 minutes, schedule an hour on the calendar. That way, if you finish the meeting in 45 minutes, your attendees will be pleasantly surprised by an extra 15 minutes in their day.
Send an agenda
In those first few months of lockdown, agendas were all the rage. Ten months on and ‘let’s discuss it over Zoom’ has too often been the pre-cursor for a problem that could have been solved with a quick email.
Re-introducing virtual meeting agendas will allow you to evaluate whether or not you really need that meeting in the first place. It lets your attendees know beforehand what topics are to be discussed and, based on that, if they should invite any additional teammates to join the conversation.
It will also be easier to keep your meeting on track if attendees are aware of what needs to be covered.
Moderate the meeting
Keeping the conversation on track is much easier if there is one designated leader in charge of the meeting.
Have that person keep side conversations to a minimum and have them encourage the rest of your attendees to address only the points on the agenda.
If you notice that someone has not contributed, ask them directly to share their thoughts. When everyone is working from home, it’s easy to miss the early signs of someone struggling so make sure that all attendees are encouraged to contribute equally to the conversation.
Hold questions until the end of a presentation
When hosting virtual training or presenting new products or concepts to internal stakeholders, explain that there will be time for questions at the end and ask everyone to have their microphones on mute until then.
That way, you can time your presentation to allow for 15 minutes of questions, and present in the knowledge that your message won’t be interrupted by other people’s background noise.
Designate a note-taker and record the meeting
If people are screen-sharing, it is difficult for them to take notes simultaneously.
Show virtual meeting etiquette by having a designated note-taker take minutes so that all attendees can have access to the information following the conversation.
Notes are a great summary of information for attendees who were present at the meeting, but for those who were unable to attend, a recording is the best way to make sure they get all the information that they missed.
Make sure that your virtual meetings platform has recording capabilities, and that you record the meeting from the beginning.
Just because we are physically apart does not mean that we can slack on the common courtesies of everyday office life. Be sure to practice virtual meeting etiquette to show respect towards your co-workers, your organisation, and yourself. When we are all together again, it will pay off.
