How to Grab and Keep Your Team Attention During Online Meeting 

Virtual meetings are the new trend. Since the pandemic hit us unexpectedly, both companies and employees need to adapt to the new circumstances quickly. Virtual meetings might be something new for now, but they’re the future; but let’s face it, they are not half as fun as in-person meetings. Besides, it’s hard to keep everyone’s attention in an online meeting.

Here are some tricks and tips you might find helpful. Grabbing your team’s attention during an online meeting will be less challenging once you implement these strategies.

Incentivize them to show up

The first and most important problem is your employees not showing up. Yes, that happens, and yes, that’s hard to challenge. Here are some ideas that you could tackle.

• Be as flexible and accommodating as you can. Make sure that the meetings don’t surpass their schedules. Find available times that work for everyone; work across multiple time zones to ensure everyone’s satisfied.
• Try to avoid scheduling meetings on Mondays or Fridays, recommends dissertation service UK. Only do this if it’s absolutely necessary. No one likes to start or end the week with a meeting.
• Encourage everyone to talk and say what’s on their mind. No one likes attending a meeting where they’re not being listened to. Collaboration and communication are the essential keys to successful team meetings.

Get them involved

Your next task is to get participants involved. Participating in a meeting without contributing is boring. Grab their attention by using their favorite nicknames or joking about stuff that interests them. You could also assign each one of them a task during the meeting to keep them involved. Making them responsible for a specific task will give them a sense of importance. That’s good, this will make them more involved.

Keep in mind that introverts are not as willing to participate in a meeting. This is why you must set up an environment that works for everybody. Getting the introverts to hop in is more challenging, but you can definitely accomplish that. You could have them consult with a custom essay service and type notes of your meeting. They could type them, and the professional services could check them for grammar errors or spelling mistakes. The idea is to offer them the opportunity to do the background work within a meeting. Then, slowly get them more involved in the foreground process.

Make them laugh

One of the ways to grab your team’s attention during a meeting is to make them laugh. If meetings are fun, they won’t be skipped. If the environment is relaxed and friendly, everyone will love your meetings; and this is the exact environment you’re attempting to create by making your team laugh. Here are some ideas that could work for you and your team.

• Dress-up day. Yes, you’re meeting online, but who said that can’t be fun? Arrange a dress-up party during the workday where everyone dresses up and works at the same time. Exciting!
• Funny project names. Ask every member of the team to name the project you’re pursuing. You cannot even imagine how funny this can get, writes essay writing service UK specialist, Helga Johnson.
• Make time for casual talks and deeper conversations. This is not necessarily entertaining, but it’s something that most meetings lack. Interact with each one of the participants and make sure they interact with each other.

Help them listen

If your meeting’s boring, your team won’t be actively listening. The meeting becomes a burden, and that’s when you lose them. To get them to listen up, here are some things you might want to consider.

• Get them interested from the very first start. Think of a hook that gets everyone’s attention. Maybe you could start by delivering some important news at the beginning of each meeting.
• Keep your staff involved every second of the way. Ask them questions, and openly answer any questions they might have. You could ask them to prepare a brief description of their expectations for each session; at the end of the session, you can check together if the expectations were met.
• Try to make your employees feel connected to the team. Ask for feedback from each one of them. Help them understand how much their opinion matters. Ask them what other needs they might have and if there’s anything you can do to help them. As I said, this pandemic struck us unexpectedly, so everyone’s a bit confused.

Close the meeting in a nice way

It’s time to get your meeting to an end. As you’re wrapping up, start getting into more personal conversations with your employees. Ask them what their plans are for the week, how their families are, how they’re feeling. Make them your friends as you also develop inherent curiosity. Make sure you engage with them after each meeting. If you need feedback, don’t hesitate to ask them about it.