Guidelines for Maintaining Effective, Productive Remote Meetings

Before COVID-19, meetings formed the mainstay of the business. This pandemic has almost relegated these meetings to the tradition of times gone by. The new meeting format must be adapted to accommodate remote workers. 

Saving time, remaining focused, staying collaborative, while communicating clearly and effectively to promote ongoing productivity is key to ensuring remote workers stay onboard with company objectives. Follow these simple guidelines to achieve this outcome.

Do you need a meeting or a group email?

Make inquiries to determine if a meeting is necessary or whether an email will do the job. Typed status reports can replace meetings. Attach a schedule to each report with space for comments. Circulate the status report to team members which include details regarding dates, times and a place for notes. 

Plan meetings well if it is not impossible to replace these with email communications. Determine whether it is viable to invite-only vital stakeholders to a meeting and whether they will clearly understand their roles? Inform other team members why this approach is being implemented. 

Careful planning of meetings is required

Find the common person who is to attend each meeting. Appoint them to be in charge of all further online meetings. This leader should coordinate and communicate meeting requirements. They should develop a protocol to manage all meetings. 

An agenda should be drawn up and distributed prior to each meeting. Minutes should be taken at each meeting, and these should be distributed to all the stakeholders. Everyone’s role should be clarified prior to meetings. This leader should also maintain their role in coordinating feedback and new items for the meeting agenda.

Establish remote meeting protocols and stick to these

Create an agenda and highlight all the items to be discussed for each meeting. Note who should be responsible for each project. You may also use the services of a digital marketing agency to manage remote meetings.

List the feedback given, the milestones to be achieved by particular dates, and who the person responsible for the action needed to achieve that goal. Share the minutes with all the team members within two days of each meeting. 

Share the agenda with the team members at least a week before each meeting date online. Include instructions for the meeting format regarding which software will be used to facilitate the meeting, e.g. Skype. Make a provision for an alternative should the chosen software platform not be working.

Maintain a flexible meeting space

All team members should contribute to the meeting. Manage them well and let them know that they only have 5 minutes to speak. This rule prevents any one person from controlling the dialogue and wasting time. 

Add a further 10 minutes to the meeting once all agenda items have been covered. This time enables additions to be made at the current meeting or for new issues to be added to the agenda for the following meeting.

Maintain flexible meeting times to accommodate parents with children, but once a meeting time is accepted, it must be adhered to. Team members can make cancellations within 24 hours prior to a meeting or for emergencies. They can catch up by reading the meeting minutes to check their activities to be completed before the next meeting. 

For more on how to keep your business alive and kicking during these testing times, call Website Depot, the best digital agency in LA, on (888) 477-9540.