In business, a lot of professionals rely on routine in order to function at an optimal level. Working this way eliminates energy-draining second guessing, all the while providing a level of comfort that makes checking tasks off the page much easier.
Companies, too, have their routines. Be it weekly staff meetings to update one another on current and upcoming projects, or team training sessions to ensure all employees are keeping their skills razor-sharp.
Throughout the world, both parties have turned to regular virtual meetings as a way to help their routines stay the course. Interestingly, though, these video conferences themselves develop their own routines – sometimes for the good, sometimes for the not so good.
To ensure that your team’s online meetings routine remains as productive as possible, consider doing the following:
Observe How Participants Act on a Video Call
When you have a live video chat online with your team, a lot can be learned by how a participant is acting throughout the call.
As much as it is encouraging to see employees who are constantly engaged and enthusiastic about each matter being discussed, not everyone will be this way. Some staff – depending on the nature of the video call – will not focus as hard on the conversation as they should, or be able to sit still for a prolonged period of time. Others, meanwhile, could get super-animated because the online meeting is venturing into stressful territory.
If staff members are acting in a way that conveys they’d rather be anywhere else than the virtual meeting everyone else is partaking in, then it is time to reevaluate how these gatherings are structured.
Perhaps they are too long, disorganized, or dry. Try your best to identify what the root cause might be, then come up with a video meeting format that will keep everyone on the call attentive at all times.
Accept and Offer Constructive Feedback
After you take some time to evaluate the format of your virtual meetings, you may discover the best way to move forward is to accept, and offer, constructive feedback from those on the calls.
For instance, invite employees to share their concerns without fear of repercussions. Find out if they are happy with the online meeting platform and/or the video chat app being used by the company. See what they like about virtual meeting routine that’s been established and ask what they’d like to see changed.
Conversely, you may need to take it upon yourself to sit with employees and managers/project leads and offer them advice on what they can do to improve the way they participate in such calls.
Keep an Eye on Meeting Frequency
There is such a thing as having too many video calls. While meetings are inherently important to ensure company objectives are being met and projects completed, too many can prove daunting.
In particular, we have to consider workers who require a significant amount of focus to successfully complete their assigned projects. If they keep getting pulled away for meetings, it can take them some time again to get back in the groove of what they were doing ahead of the call.
While all employees should know that attending virtual meetings are a part of their job description, you want them to also have a fair shot at handling the other aspects of their position.
If you see that deadlines are being missed, or project performance isn’t what it used to be, determine if the time of these issues correlate with an influx of video conferences. In the event that they do, maybe your company’s video call routine can be adjusted accordingly.
