Guidelines for virtual meetings

According to Psychology today, 55% of communication is body language, 38% is the tone of voice, and 7% is the actual words spoken.

So when we transition from physically being together when we have a meeting to running the meeting on an online technology we will lose much of the body and tone of voice communication.  We also have the mechanics of bringing people onto the platform and making them visible to others and enabling everyone to speak and have a discussion via the platform as opposed to the free dialogue that can arise in a room.

We therefore need to have some guidelines as to how to make the best use of virtual communication technology.

Here are some tips for making your virtual meeting successful:

• Basic etiquette
  • Dress appropriately
  • Be aware of your space when using video (what is behind you…)
  • Mute the microphone when not talking
  • Don’t keep typing during the meeting
  • Avoid moving around, eating or any other distracting activity
• Scheduling and joining the meeting
  • Use outlook or other planning systems to place the meeting in everyone diary
  • Add the joining instructions ideally as a link in the meeting
  • Enable people to join by smartphone whilst mobile
  • Think of who will join and how to confirm their acceptance of the meeting
  • Make it as easy as possible to join the online meeting (“one click”)
• Organising the meeting
  • Appoint a chairperson and someone to take notes
  • Consider whether to record the meeting and communicate this
  • Ensure you know how to “pass the microphone” before the meeting starts
  • Ensure any materials to be shared are set up in the online environment
  • have a plan for the amount of time to be spent and the agenda
  • Setting meeting objectives
• Running the meeting
  • Use video where possible – remember body language helps
  • Check people joining and leaving the meeting and who is present
  • Let people introduce themselves to create a good atmosphere
  • Forbid multi-tasking – we are all here for the meeting
  • Share air time fairly and avoid any one participant being overly present
  • Confirm follow up actions

We hop these guidelines help you run an effective online meeting