Online Meeting Etiquette for Attendees Who are Remote Leave a comment

With more and more businesses turning to video conferencing for their meetings, it’s essential to ensure that attendees are comfortable and that the meeting runs as smoothly as possible. If you’ve ever participated in an online meeting, you know the difficulty in managing multiple conversations at once. What’s worse is when you’re sitting next to someone on a phone call, and they’re also taking notes on their laptop at the same time.

An online meeting is an excellent supplement to an in-person meeting — it’s perfect for casting a wider net or for getting additional perspectives. Online meetings that are well planned and executed can be just as productive, insightful, and enjoyable as in-person meetings. However, online meetings are not without their challenges.

Virtual meetings are a great way to allow a remote workforce to contact the main office. But they can also make you feel disconnected from your co-workers. The lack of facial expressions and body language make it hard to know if you’re rude or disrespectful to others. To help you find the perfect balance between being confident enough to participate in a remote meeting and not step on any toes, we’ve come up with some tips for you.

Maintaining the proper etiquette is essential to any online meeting. Whether the meeting is virtual or face-to-face, keeping a few easy rules in mind can help ensure the success of a meeting.

Here are some tips on how to make your online meetings more effective.

• Ask the agenda for the Online meeting: This helps get to know what has been discussed before and the primary purpose of the meeting. The meeting agenda will help you set the tone for the meeting and give an idea about what each participant should be prepared with at the start of the meeting.
• Come prepared: Online meetings are a great way to solve problems, hash out decisions, and explore new opportunities. If you’re leading the meeting, it’s your job to make sure it runs smoothly. One of the best ways to accomplish this is to prepare for the meeting keeping the agenda in mind.
• Signal to others that you are in a meeting: Just prop a note on the door for your family members. This note is a simple reminder for co-workers to knock before entering your office—a simple solution for something that can become a problem in the virtual meeting.
• Keep away from distractions: Turn off all chat applications and notifications. Silence your phone. Closeout any tabs that aren’t essential to the meeting. If you are a fidgeter, have something in your hand.
• Stay on mute in a virtual meeting: And while it’s true that technology has made communication more manageable than ever before, it’s also true that we don’t always use it to the full advantage. You have the ability to mute calls from your account settings, and it’s a welcome feature for people who are distracted by background noises.
• Don’t talk over people: The biggest mistake many of us make is talking too much when on a video call. We want to tell the other person how incredible our idea is or sound so bright that they think we’re the next Einstein. Stop it! Do you know what happens? They get bored or annoyed and lose interest in what you’re saying.

Conclusion

As the pace continues to accelerate for everyone involved in online meetings, it’s become increasingly crucial for attendees to be cognizant of their meeting etiquette.

The online video meeting is a fantastic way for people to communicate and collaborate regardless of where they are. But to make the most of them, participants must adhere to proper etiquette.

Remote meeting attendees can be a challenge. However, you can make sure your remote colleagues get the best experience possible with these simple rules.

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