Successful remote meetings require many things to become a productive huddle between employees and managers. Being able to set the objective while simultaneously having each member of the meeting understand their tasks is an achievement in meetings.

Unlike meetings that take place in the physical world, virtually-held meetings can encounter delays and setbacks on top of the usual misunderstandings that can occur. To host a successful remote gathering, you must be well aware of the challenges of managing a remote team. 

But how do we prevent these setbacks? The recurring problem with remote collaboration is always miscommunication, distraction, and disconnection. Luckily, these tips can prevent you from losing your team’s attention to get to the matter at hand.

Why are Effective Remote Meeting Tips Important?

Effective remote meetings and the tips to promote them are important in the overall growth, productivity, and transition of a company. When each employee is aware of the objectives and tasks, they are required to do while knowing how to collaborate effectively with the rest of the team, the speed of production increases.

The same can be said when sudden announcements are made. In order to reach all personnel affected by the announcement, it’s important to consider how to delegate the announcement and the steps taken regarding this effect efficiently.

10 Tips for Running Effective Remote Meetings

Below are a few tips for hosting a positive and productive meeting remotely. Utilise all these options to create a perfect collaboration between team members. 

Set a Clear Agenda and Circulate it Beforehand

Making sure your objectives are clear before the discussion is an important factor in remote meetings. Instead of going in unaware of what the collaboration is about, it will help members of the huddle to be prepared with their questions and other input regarding the topic at hand.

It’s also important to ensure that all those involved in the meeting receive messages about the topic and the schedule before the meeting’s date. This prevents any miscommunication that could confuse missing members or unprepared employees.

Choose the right video conferencing tool and ensure everyone is familiar with it.

Remote meetings should also use an application that all parties are familiar with, such as popular video conferencing tools. This ensures that the meeting does not experience any setbacks due to technical difficulties or trouble entering the meeting.

Instead, the conversation will go more fluidly, and those presenting can freely speak without interruptions. Video conferencing tools such as MS Teams, Google Meets, Zoom, and Skype are some of the more popular versions that many companies and employees are familiar with.

Start on time and respect everyone’s time by keeping the meeting focused.

Knowing how to run remote meetings also includes knowing when to schedule their start and end times. Do not begin your meeting late to respect the other participants who will be doing other tasks afterward.

This means starting and ending the meeting on time to prevent delays in other participants’ schedules. It also gives a sense of formality and organization between meeting members, ensuring that all are focused on finishing the task and collaborating during this period.

Establish Ground Rules for Participation

Enhancing remote meetings by establishing ground rules when participating in the conversation. Unnecessary additions between conversations regarding the topic can become distractions that prevent finding a solid solution.

Ground rules can also prevent heated disagreements caused by tension between different employees. Establishing respect for each member participating in the discussion and giving time to explain their presentation before being cut off is a necessary aspect of productivity.

Thanks to the ground rules you established prior to the meeting, healthy criticism and problem-solving can also be respectfully given.

Encourage Active Participation from All Attendees By using Polls or Breakout Rooms

Breakout rooms and polls in remote meetings are beneficial for increasing active participation. Polls settle disputes and options via the majority by using a voting system to calculate which method is mostly agreed upon by the entire team.

Meanwhile, breakout rooms are a method seen in Zoom and Google Ads wherein you can split a meeting into different parts and have discussions separately before discussing overall with the entire group.

Keep the Meeting Concise and Avoid Information Overload

One of the biggest fallbacks of remote meetings is overloading information to its participants. Having too much information stuffed into a specific period can make things even more confusing than organised for many of the employees.

This is especially noticeable when remote teams discuss numerous topics in one sitting. To prevent such errors, keep in mind that each meeting you host will be concise, focusing on one particular objective, and having an organized list of subtopics to discuss.

Summarise Key Points, Decisions, and Steps

Remote meetings must always have a conclusion that summarises the entire discussion. Just like any of the remote working tips you can find, having a soft document of any of the tasks or announcements can prevent miscommunication and foster effective collaboration.

By the end of every meeting, it’s important to go back to each key point discussed, the decisions made during the meeting, and the following steps and assignments for each participant. That way, you have a soft copy of the delegated information, and you can resolve or answer to any questions or misunderstandings before the meeting.

Assign Clear Action with Deadlines and Owners

Delegating tasks can become confusing if the tasks are simply laid out in remote meetings. That is why assigning tasks to specific participants is much more important to prevent miscommunication.

Losing sight of their tasks could lead an employee to mistakenly overtake another co-worker’s task, resulting in more errors and setbacks during production. Assigning clear tasks to each participant and reviewing them after each meeting will ensure continuous productivity.

Share Follow-up Documents

Presentations in remote meetings will likely have documents, slide shows, and other information jotted down or discussed during the meeting. It is crucial to have these documents passed along to all those involved after the meeting itself.

By doing so, you can ensure that those involved in the meeting can review their tasks or the group’s decisions without having any misconceptions about the topic at hand. Instead, they can proceed forward with their role after thoroughly checking the follow-up documents provided.

Seek Feedback from Participants on How to Improve Future Remote Meetings

Things don’t always go as planned, and even if they do, there is still room for improvement. Seek feedback from your participants after the meeting to learn more about how you can reduce time waste and run an effective meeting.

By doing so, you can also create enhancements to provide a more positive and productive huddle between employees, which can encourage innovation, collaboration, and organization among company members. 

Conclusion

That concludes the list of tips for remote meetings that can elevate your company’s productivity. Take your time to understand each method to fully take advantage of its benefits. Likewise, take note that hosting a remote meeting requires you to stay focused on the task at hand.

Ready to elevate your remote work life? Explore our remote team development tips on our blog page and transform your remote work experience.