Remote workers may be more distracted than actual face to face meeting with colleagues because of their location. You must be prepared to effectively carry out the video meeting and maximize the opportunity.
Here are some simple tips on how to effectively set a Skype Video Meeting with your virtual workers:
- Preparation. Opportunity that meets preparation yields success. You must prepare your meeting. Consider the time zones of your workers. Write the agenda, prepare the roster of participants, prepare the necessary files to be used and inform ahead of time about a week before the intended date and time of meeting. You can use Skype group chat features to send the files ahead. Make sure that your meeting has a list of topics to be discussed, time start and time end to give each one a head start.
- Instructions before Starting the Meeting. It is important to set the ground rules for the meeting before you start discussing your agenda. Ask your workers to focus and set aside any distraction. Set their Skype status in to “Do Not Disturb” during the entire meeting to block out any disturbance. Instruct to avoid text messaging, or emailing during the meeting. Their 100% focus must be in the meeting and nothing more.
- Encourage Interaction. During the entire meeting, instead of asking your workers some open-ended questions, allow them to interact. At the start of the meeting, ask each one to introduce themselves and get the interaction going all throughout. Ask their thoughts and opinions on the points taken. The Group Video Call feature will enable you to see your workers as if in a face to face meeting.
- Recap the meeting. Make sure you recap the point discussed in your meeting. Emphasize topics that need follow up and assign specific persons on tasks to do. Ask their feedback and comments on how to improve the meeting next time. You can also use skype video recorder to record the meeting and review them at later time.
Company meetings can either be boring or stressful depending on your role in the team. If you are just an attendee with no presentation or tasks, you might just be sitting there counting the time until the meeting is over. If you are the one preparing the meeting, you’d probably be panicky to get all the details done and give each one their own copy of the agenda.
These simple tips mentioned above will help you in gaining more control, interaction and focus from your remote workers which is a great way to improve your company and their work performance.
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