How to Run a Successful Virtual Meeting with Your Staff
In salons, it may feel silly to run a virtual meeting, but with restrictions and people’s schedules, they’re becoming more common. Virtual meetings allow for team members to connect, be socially distanced, and stay in the loop! Of course, there can be challenges with running a meeting virtually, but they can be just as successful as in-person if you stick to these tips.
Below are 6 tips to help you successfully run a virtual meeting with your staff!
1. Set an Agenda
It’s easy to get distracted during meetings, even now more than ever. With working from home there are added distractions than at the office with kids and pets running around. To keep things on track, set a meeting agenda, and share this agenda with the meeting attendees at the beginning of the meeting. Include this agenda as a visual reminder in your meeting and if things start to get off track refer back to it.
2. Assign a Facilitator
It can be harder to manage a virtual discussion. To help with this assign one individual who will guide the conversation. This will allow other participants to focus on the content being presented. The facilitator can be responsible for asking questions throughout the presentation and ensuring that everyone is staying engaged.
3. Jump Right into It
Jumping right into it might seem abrupt but the quicker you can get things started the less likely it is for people’s minds to wander. At the beginning of the meeting, you can thank everyone for coming, go over the agenda and get right into it. This will also show respect for your employee’s time and they will be thankful for less wasted time and more content.
4. Require Video Usage
Requiring video usage does not hold people accountable for attending the meeting, even though it can have this effect, but being able to actually see people’s faces and expressions during a call will help humanize the experience. This is not only helpful for the presenter but also for the attendees. When everyone’s camera is on it will help with eliminating distractions like surfing social media on your phone.
5. Use a Recurring Link for Logins
Something simple but will save a ton of time is simply saving the same login info for each meeting! If you often have a repeating occurrence of the same meeting try to use the same meeting information for each meeting. This will save everyone a few minutes each time and there will be fewer technology glitches.
Using the same platform can also save time too. There are multiple platforms you can use to perform a virtual meeting but some of our favorites are Skype, Google Duo, and Facetime! Each has its own pros and cons; Facetime being most compatible with Apple devices, you can include up to 32 participants on a chat and it is free to use. Google Duo works with both Android and Apple, and it’s free to use. Skype is a well-known platform that many people can have single or group calls with. Whatever you choose, make sure it works best for you and your team!
6. Build in Time for Glitches
Technical glitches are almost inevitable during online meetings. Whether it’s a slow wifi connection or your computer needs an update for a certain platform. It is known that virtual presentations last 25% longer than in person-presentations. It is important to add this time to the meeting to ensure everyone is able to attend the full meeting. After all, your employees will be more pleased to have a meeting finish early than last longer than expected.
In this world of new normals, we are all doing our best to be productive. If you follow these six steps we trust that you will be able to have a successful meeting with your team!
