How Can Virtual Team Meetings Be Productive and Engaging?

As an entrepreneur, finding time in your busy day to juggle virtual team meetings while caring for your children or other responsibilities is challenging. You want to make the most of the time you spend and have a highly productive meeting. It’s crucial to engage participants and keep things moving so you make the most of every minute. 

Staying organized and using the technological tools at your disposal can make a difference in a lackluster meeting people dread and an engaging, highly interactive gathering people remember for days after it ends.

1. Get Organized

Plan out what you want to cover before the meeting starts and stick to a narrow topic. The more organized you are, the better you’ll spend your meeting time. 

Team members are usually quite busy. Taking time out of the day for a meeting means getting out of the mode of working on whatever project is at hand, getting into a group mindset and then trying to wrap your brain back around daily tasks. 

The time list isn’t always just in the moments during the meeting but the preparation and getting back in the groove of work after the event. Having an agenda helps keep everyone on track and limits wasted moments.

2. Use Visual Aids

Virtual team meetings can be rather boring and distracting without the use of visual aids to break up the monotony. Come up with a theme everyone can follow and change their backgrounds to, such as your favorite television show or band. It opens up the channels for communication before the meeting starts and enhances company culture and team building.

You should also share your screen and come up with presentation materials to keep everyone engaged. Bullet points allow attendees to follow along and presenters to stay off rabbit trails. 

3. Choose Meeting Length

People have short attention spans and it’s only gotten worse with social media snippet sites like TikTok. People don’t want to waste their time, so you should keep the length short. Most events do best with a one- to two-hour range. 

If you can’t fit everything into one shorter gathering, you probably need to split it into two meetings spaced a few days or weeks apart. Limit the number of questions, as questions can slow down progress and are often answered somewhere within the presentation. 

4. Decide on a Time

What time will the meeting occur? You want to choose something convenient based on people’s schedules. For virtual teams, they might have differing start and end times throughout the day. One person might have to start and stop to take their kids to and from school so they work longer into the evening. Another might start early and wrap up early. Select a time that works for everyone, such as mid-day or a lunch meeting. 

Understand that not everyone will make every meeting. Sites such as Zoom allow you to record the event so those who couldn’t join in can view it at a more convenient time. 

5. Select a Platform

Since 2020, remote work has increased and more companies turn to virtual meetings to keep everyone on the same page. Fortunately, this means there are more options for online meeting platforms than ever before. 

Try various providers and see which one is easiest for your team to use. You might even go to a chat-only option such as Slack so you can look back on a brainstorming session and not forget any key points. 

Wherever you host your virtual meetings, try to decide on one and remain consistent. Users shouldn’t scramble to find lost passwords or regain access because a location hasn’t been used in a long time. 

6. Actively Listen

During the meeting, you can keep users engaged by actively listening to their input and responding accordingly. It’s easy to get distracted when you’re meeting digitally. For example, you might hear your cell phone ping and look away and miss a key question in the chat.

Pose questions to users to engage them in the topic and then pay attention to their responses so you can build on what they ask or say. Be present in the moment during the meeting to set the example for employees to be focused also. 

7. Only Meet When Necessary

You’ve likely heard the jokes and seen the coffee mugs that say people survived another pointless meeting or that it could have been an email. Consider whether you even need to have the meeting in the first place. If you are just going over loads of content, the meeting is a waste of time and something people could read in their inbox. 

For mompreneurs, they often start a business to have more time with their families. Spending countless hours in meetings takes away precious time and focus. Instead, only have a meeting if there is no other way to get the information across or the answers you need. Flexibility is everything for solopreneur moms, who often work while kids are napping or in bed for the night.

Don’t be the subject of a joke mug. Make your meetings count and people will naturally be more interactive.

Make Your Virtual Meetings Fun

Look for ways to make your virtual team meetings fun so people will want to attend. Hand out prizes by drawing names of participants. Have breakout brainstorming sessions with team members to help with team building and also learn something new. You can learn more about building your business and encouraging employees by signing up for a Founding Mom membership.

Eleanor Hecks is the founder and managing editor of Designerly Magazine. She’s also a web design consultant with a focus on customer experience and user interface. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dogs, Bear and Lucy. Connect with her about marketing, design and/or tea on LinkedIn!