How To Host a Virtual Meeting?
Virtual meetings have become the norm, and learning to host one is a vital skill for anyone with an eye on becoming a team leader or ascending to higher levels of management. There is a lot that overlaps with running an in-person meeting because you do need to keep order, move the agenda forward, and make space for everyone to contribute all in a careful balance. Since the tools and the challenges are different, it can still seem a little daunting at times.
Wear professional attire as you would when hosting a meeting in the office
Set a Zoom Virtual Office background to standardize the experience of your participants
Make sure you are including each team member without allowing them to simply speak over one another, and use the moderation tools in your video conferencing platform of choice to enforce this decorum
Check out the integrated tools for slide shows, outside resources, and other visual aids that you will need for the meeting and test them before starting
Be the first one in at the meeting time, and make sure you are using invites and notifications to give people the lead time needed to be present
If you are the one with control over the software choices for your company, then you have important decisions to make about virtual meetings that will affect everyone in your organization as well as all the clients and potential clients you meet with. That includes the choice of meeting platform, workflow management software, and other team-based tools that your people need to collaborate in a virtual office environment.
Which Platform Is Best for Your Company?
There are three main platforms for office video conferencing, and each has its own advantages. When you are considering which one your company could make best use of, consider the signature advantage of each one.
Zoom can be used easily by anyone, so it works well for connecting to outside parties who do not subscribe to your productivity tools or have access to your office’s online infrastructure
Google Meet is easy to use internally and externally as long as you have a Google ID, and on top of that it integrates smoothly with other Google apps that companies typically use for collaboration online
Microsoft Teams is a robust platform with integrated support for other Microsoft products and a huge array of additional apps and customizable modules to support your office’s needs
If you do use Zoom for a platform, the minimum system requirements for background images can sometimes cause issues. Luckily, you can bypass Zoom virtual background requirements relatively easily if you know how.
Look Professional at Home
The most important part of conducting a virtual meeting is knowing how to dress for the part. Looking professional at home is a skill that not many people have practiced, but it is essential when you are running meetings from your home. Learn how to use a Zoom background office to protect your privacy, then dress just as you would for any day at the office where you would be called to give a presentation. That’s really all it takes, if you have the right technological support set up in advance.
