To make the most of online meetings, make the objectives clear upfront, set rules in the room, and create opportunities for all the participants to provide input and share their ideas and thoughts.
- Inclusion is critical to keep engagement, collaboration and innovation in our companies.
- Follow some tips and recommendations to make a virtual meeting more inclusive and keep attendees engaged.
A few months ago our calendar was regularly booked back-to-back with meetings. Many things have changed in our life this year except that we still have our calendar full of meetings, which now are virtual.
We now all know the living room of our colleagues, their roommates and children. Internet breaks, some speak out loud, others are silent or in mute. All these are characteristics of online meetings. How and which are the best techniques to lead to a more participatory and inclusive virtual meeting?
Here are a few tips:
Meeting Logistics
- Turning on your video and encouraging attendees to do so -if they are able to-. It will mitigate distance bias and build connections, allowing members to engage with each other through non-verbal communication.
- To avoid background noise and distractions, it is useful to have participants muted during the session. You can previously fix and inform the attendees about the structure of the meeting and the non-verbal feedback tools such as raising a virtual hand, using the chat feature. Most of the time, the concrete signal of becoming unmute is enough to show someone has something to say.
- Limit the meetings to ten participants maximum. It applies to in-person and virtual meetings too. Overcrowded meetings tend to reduce the participation of each attendee. If you have to invite more than ten participants, consider establishing smaller discussion groups during the session.
- Varying meeting times, excluding holidays and keeping in mind religious celebrations. Have in mind the availability of those who are at home dealing with the rest of the family members, taking care of children, pets, elders or relatives, where the difficulty can arise if meetings are scheduled too early or far too late.
- Begin the meetings with genuine warmth, addressing the current challenge of this remote-work reality. Letting the rest know you are aware of their situation, where there are few guarantees of working quietly, comfortably and counting with the appropriate technical requirements. Inform people in advance if it’s required to participate via video. You can even send a follow-up email with notes and actions to support participants who may suffer interruptions during the meeting.
- Circulating the agenda in advance will allow people to prepare themselves. Make sure attendees know which topics will be discussed and the objectives of the meeting.
- Reduce presentations to little data or just a few slides. You could consider assigning reports or pre-work in advance to ensure everyone is prepared and starts from the same place.
- Use technology tools to capture different perspectives and the input of introverted participants, like yes/no voting features, polling, chat rooms, and any other in-app nonverbal feedback functions.
Leading a meeting
- Begin meetings with a focused statement that centres diversity, equity, and inclusion and aligns with the company’s values.
- Encourage every attendee participation, ask questions more than you give instructions, and give your opinion just after others have shared theirs.
- Setting a precedent of open communication around decision-making will empower employees to share their ideas and thoughts anonymous or privately.
- Fostering inclusion and counteracting isolation, especially with employees who hold marginalised identities. Recognise achievements, show genuine interest in your staff, ask for and listen to participants points of view. Even if you receive an answer you were not expecting, make people feel valuable and don’t cut someone off, let him finish his thoughts. Be sure to model these small inclusive gestures and lead with the example.
- Delegating responsibilities and splitting the roles for each meeting (a facilitator, a timekeeper and a note-taker) will allow you to focus on inclusion, ensuring all voices and points of view are heard. Change the roles between participants from meeting to meeting, keeping everyone engaged and actively involved.
Also, ask your team for feedback about the structure of the meetings. Work together to find the meeting structure that works best for all.
If you are a middle manager, you spend about 35% of your time in meetings (and 50% upper managers). It is a lot! Make sure it’s not a waste of time and make them productive!
