In business, it is important to understand how to conduct yourself during a video call. Who you are meeting with – be it co-workers, long-distance associates, established clients, or ones you are getting to know – should not matter. Every virtual meeting you enter needs to be approached with a certain level of professionalism.
Honestly, the list of things you should never do during a team video chat could look like a two-week grocery shopping list for a family of 5. For the sake of this exercise, however, let’s zone in on six key points:
Interrupt Others
If you know how to host a meeting of any sort, then you are aware about how counterproductive it is to interrupt other participants. Not only is this behaviour rude, but it also makes those being interrupted feel as though their knowledge and opinions do not matter.
To succeed at business, you need to be constantly learning. Actively listening to others on a video call and considering what’s being said helps you evolve. Conversely, if you regularly interrupt others, you could be losing out on a real opportunity to significantly educate yourself.
Be Surrounded by Distractions
As amazing as work from home jobs can be, they are also very prone to distraction. Your spouse is completing household chores, the kids think it’s always play time, while the cat uses your keyboard as his bed.
If you’re at the office, a phone could be constantly ringing, or fellow staff members always think it’s a good time to pop by for an in-person chat.
Regardless of your work environment, the type of business communication you want to present to others is one that’s distraction-free. If you allow yourself to jump on a video chat while amidst surrounding chaos, others will have a tough time focusing and perhaps question whether you’re taking the meeting seriously.
Always try to find a calm space with great Internet connectivity.
Rush People
While time is predominantly of the essence, you want others on your video call to feel like they will have more than enough of it to share a presentation, or a point-of-view.
By casually – or very obviously – pushing a fellow virtual meeting attendee to hurry up their process, you are inviting ideas that may not have had a chance to fully develop. Even worse, you imply this person’s time is not as valuable as others, which could result in a lack of motivation moving forward.
Not Know How to Present
When required to present during a video call, please have a plan in place. During staff meetings, you want to maintain the attention and interest of attendees – fumbling through a presentation won’t help achieve either.
If you just have to deliver an address to your team on the benefits of video conferencing, create cue cards for any talking points you want to relay. Meanwhile, if technological presentation tools are needed, see that you know how to use them ahead of time.
Leave Abruptly and Without Warning
Meeting etiquette would suggest it’s never proper to exit a video call abruptly and without giving the other participants fair warning. Unless there’s an all-encompassing technical glitch or an emergency situation, don’t just exit stage left whenever you feel like it.
Even if you have completed your part of a virtual meeting, become bored with the gathering, or get rubbed the wrong way by how someone has spoken to you, hang in there. Leaving early is never a good look, as it could lead to larger, more stressful issues and consequences.
Show Up Very Late
Be on time. Entering a video call very late may not be as distracting as it would be during in-person staff meetings, but it can still cause enough noticeable disruption.
Yes, sometimes factors out of our control can make us late for video conferencing commitments. Beyond that, though, create yourself a schedule in which gaps between meetings are included just in case some run late.
Also, if you know you’ll be late for a meeting, give someone a heads-up. This will show common courtesy and indicate that you care about the group’s virtual meeting.
Banty is a secure, easy-to-operate online meeting platform that will make you always want to arrive on-time for a meeting. Some of our highlighted features include:
· End-to-end encryption technology
· Manual video quality overriding
· A permanent, custom URL for each user
· Productivity tools like screen share, digital whiteboard, and group YouTube video viewing
· Intuitive Scheduling and Google Calendar Integration
