SOS Bookkeeping is aware that although virtual meetings were a rare occurrence before the era of lockdowns, self-isolation, and working from home, now they are a part of everyday business life. It appears that virtual meetings will continue to be a mainstay of how we conduct business for the foreseeable future. Previously, your company may have held occasional virtual meetings with clients located outside of Ireland but now most companies have staff members working from home in some capacity every day.
Since the outbreak of the pandemic, we at SOS Bookkeeping have participated in our fair share of online meetings, therefore we thought it would be helpful to provide some advice to our customers about how to conduct an effective online meeting. Here’s our guide to getting virtual meetings right:
- Give folks time to introduce themselves and get to know one another. Virtual meetings frequently display a lack of focus but keep in mind that being efficient does not necessarily equate to being productive. Pure task-focus can undermine social cohesiveness by encouraging people to accept their jobs as-is and refrain from questioning authority. Introduce individuals to one another to promote connection, ease hierarchy by encouraging full involvement, and give people time to become used to hearing diverse accents and points of view.
- Align the meeting’s duration with its objectives. Beware of Parkinson’s law: while human attention tends to wane as time passes, work grows to occupy the time. Don’t let the default length of the calendar influence the length of your meeting because people prefer shorter meetings to long ones.
- Increase participation by posing the agenda as a series of questions. The best meetings stimulate thinking and curiosity through interaction. Stiff, formal agendas promote one-way communication. Framing the agenda as questions helps focus attendees and promotes an action orientation. Instead of “Staff wellbeing”, the item could be “How can we boost wellbeing for staff who work remotely?”
If you would like to discuss your business needs. Call SOS Bookkeeping on 01 849 5131 or email shane@sosbookkeeping.ie For the latest business/practice news, taxation/financial resources and our Newsletter, visit https://sosbookkeeping.ie/