How to Make Online Meetings More Productive with Modern Software

Remote business meetings are surely not something you’re just hearing of. Not only have they become the absolute norm, but with the majority of employees switching to remote or “stay-at-home” work, they’ve become an essential tool for preserving the normal workday flow and communication between team members.

Ultimately, online meetings are here to stay. Unlike the traditional face-to-face office meetings where you can clearly see and hear everyone attending, online meetings have provided an environment in which employees can easily lose their focus and not actively participate in the discussion.

What needs to be done in order to make sure employees are paying attention during the online meetings and are not playing with their cat while the boss is discussing important assignments, is find a way to make these meetings more engaging and productive. Some rules that apply to face-to-face meetings can be applied, indeed. However, we need something extra when it comes to online meetings.

Let’s look at some ideas that could definitely work well. Remember, there’s no reason or excuse to accept or lead boring and time-consuming online meetings. With the advancement of technology and the development of so many virtual meeting software, there are many ways to make your meetings less boring. Let’s find out what are those ways!

1) Pick the right online meeting software

As mentioned before, there’s a great deal of options available when it comes to collaborative software. These tools definitely come in handy to manage conversations, chat rooms and keep everyone on the same page. Not just that but they let participants ask questions and instantly record comments.

The best online meetings software should include three essential elements: connection, collaboration and feedback. Without them, the participants will feel less engaged and the meeting won’t end up being productive.

It’s also important to mention that a lot of companies use a combination of meeting software — one for video calls (connection) and one for task management and sharing (collaboration and feedback). Sometimes even three different tools, covering those three different areas of remote work. The good news is that the options are so many that you and your team can experiment, try out new software and see which one would be the best to use.

So, what are some popular online meeting software that companies from all over the world use to boost the productivity of their team and turn any meeting into a less boring event?

Skype for Business

All you have to do to join a Skype for Business meeting is click the meeting link. The great thing about this tool is that you can join from anywhere, including the airport, coffee shop, your hotel room or your mobile device if you’re on the road.

Some other great Skype for Business features include sharing your screen whenever is necessary. This way, the entire team would be able to see your presentation or any other visual materials you want to showcase and receive real-time feedback. In addition, with Skype for Business, you can blur your background if you don’t have time to prepare for your video call.

With Skype, you can also hold your recordings for up to 30 days and any other shared media even longer. Last but not least, meetings have no expiration date. You can create a meeting ahead of time and join anytime, making it the perfect meeting tool for conference calls, webinars or interviews.

Google Meet

Hangouts is a great example of connecting and collaborating with your team in the same context. Meet is 100% integrated with Google Workspace, allowing team members to jump into a video call from Chat or work together on a document or presentation.

With Google Meet, all one has to do is set up a meeting and share a link. The clients, teammates or customers can join in regardless of whether they have the right accounts or plug-ins. Moreover, meetings can be joined directly from a Google Calendar event, email invite or from Gmail. There’s also noise cancellation, low-light mode, live captions and more. With all those attractive features and possibilities to collaborate, Google has surely found a way to make meetings more productive.

Zoom

There’s a reason why so many companies and organizations use Zoom to schedule and hold productive virtual business meetings. Zoom allows remote meetings to be recorded in the event some of your team members are sick or have another meeting at the same time. Moreover, Zoom allows you to take remote control of a team member’s screen during a meeting. This is a great collaborative feature, allowing parties to work together on a spreadsheet or other type of document.

There’s also a “waiting room” feature that allows the host to approve new attendees before entering the meeting. This way, sensitive information is kept secured and you always have control over who hears what.

GoToMeeting

GoToMeeting is another popular video conferencing platform with attractive features that according to many can transform any meeting into a productive one. Some of those include screen sharing, integrated voice over IP conference calls and HD video conferencing. In addition, with Zoom team members can record meetings in real-time, take notes and mark action items which they can share after the meeting.

GoToMeeting also offers several options for webinars, depending on the scale of the event. You can have up to 1000 participants and use the so-called “at-a-glance” dashboard chart to monitor attendance.

Zoho

Zoho is another great choice for your next online business meeting. The team behind the platform takes pride in building a secure online meeting platform that puts the user’s company first.

With Zoho, the meeting moderator controls everything. They can mute selected individuals or all participants and even remove them from the meeting when they are no longer needed.

There are also the standard features, such as screen sharing, chat and remote screen access. In addition, you can record your meetings and store them on the cloud, allowing you to replay and share recordings with members who couldn’t make it or even download recordings for offline use.

2) Learn the software and its functionalities.

After you’ve picked your preferred software for conducting online meetings, you have to familiarize yourself with its characteristics and what exactly you can do with it. Knowing your hardware and software is important, especially when you have to resolve problems quickly and effectively during a meeting.

3) Mix things up for better results.

We’ve talked about great online meetings software that can help the efficiency and productivity of any virtual correspondence. A combination of different shared spaces, however, can even further influence the output and focus of remote employees’ presence in a meeting.

For example, many companies use Skype, combined with a project management tool, such as Trello or Asana. This way, you can use Skype’s screen-share and go over the project structure, map and management boards of Trello or Asana in real time. You can also add notes, updates and tasks while you’re discussing the project with your team members. This way, everything is transparent and any team member can give a suggestion or opinion in real-time.

• A collaborative tool worth mentioning here is Miro. Many companies are already embracing the online whiteboard platform because it gives team members infinite canvas to think and innovate. Miro is also a great tool for planning, co-creation, training and team building events with its interactive features. Some of those include designing your session with various frames, using visual notes, sticky notes, emojis and more.
• Another intriguing meeting management software, which is definitely worthy of checking out is Mombit. Mombit is integrated with project management tools such as Asana, Jira and Outlook. It can also quickly generate links for an online meeting on Zoom or Skype. The tool calculates meeting ROI, which can tell you exactly how much value your meetings are adding. Mombit also allows you to track length, productivity and effectiveness of all of your team meetings. Built-in meeting minutes also help with keeping the agenda on track.

4) Remote meeting behavior that goes outside modern software solutions

1. Set norms your team and organizations should keep during remote meetings. Yes, in a remote meeting things can definitely be a little more casual, however there are still some things that you can implement for better outcomes.
2. Be present at the meeting. Close all the unnecessary windows and open just the tools you will need for that meeting.
3. Be prepared the way you will prepare for a face-to-face discussion. If you’re the one running the meeting, have a clear agenda and distribute it in advance before the meeting.
4. Make sure all the voices are heard. If your team is a quiet one, reach out to some in advance and encourage them to speak and participate in the discussion.
5. Camera on! Participants should have their video on at all times and keep themselves on mute to reduce background noise.
6. Gestures are important. We want to make sure the energy is present and there’s no “dead air” during our online video conference. That’s why don’t be afraid to use your hands and all the physical cues you would do if you were conducting the meeting in person.

To sum things up, the biggest challenge of online meetings is to keep people engaged, focused and interested. There are many tips and tricks on how to overcome this. Some are related to norms and guidelines enforced by the company or organizations. Another solution is, as we’ve pointed out during that article, making sure you’re using the right video conferencing and project management software. There are so many out there that you can freely experiment and see which one works best for you and your team. Combine two or even three platforms for better communication and project collaboration. Just make sure you’re keeping the spirit of your team uplifted and getting things done at the same time.