Communication Archives - CHCI

Mastering Virtual Meetings: A Comprehensive Checklist for Success

admin — Thu, 03 Aug 2023 04:51:29 +0000

In the ever-evolving landscape of remote work, virtual meetings are an integral part of our professional lives. However, creating engaging and productive virtual meetings can often be a challenge. A comprehensive checklist can help you navigate virtual meetings effectively, keeping them lively, efficient, and results driven.

Ready to transform your virtual meetings? Let’s get started! Below, you’ll find our detailed checklist to kickstart more productive virtual meetings.

Before the Meeting

Define clear objectives: Before drafting the meeting invite, ensure there’s a clear purpose or goal. What do you want to achieve at the end of the meeting?
Prepare an agenda: Create a detailed agenda, including the topics to be discussed, the topic sequence, and the time allocated for each. Send the agenda to all participants, or attach the agenda to the meeting invite, 24 hours before the meeting.
Choose the right technology: Choose a reliable video conferencing platform such as Zoom, Skype, or Microsoft Teams. Ensure all participants are comfortable using the chosen technology. If you’ve chosen a popular platform, there will likely be plenty of resources available online, such as written guides, video tutorials, FAQs, and more. Find a few of these resources and share them with the participants in advance.
Test the technology: Before the meeting, ensure your internet connection, camera, and microphone are working correctly. Encourage participants to do the same.
Prepare materials: If there are any presentations or documents to be discussed, prepare them in advance and consider sending them out beforehand for attendees to review.

During the Meeting

Start with an icebreaker: Start the meeting with a brief, friendly conversation or an icebreaker activity to make participants feel comfortable and encourage interaction. Here are two examples of icebreakers:
- The One-Word Icebreaker: At the start of the meeting, ask participants to share one word that describes their mood or day so far. This simple activity not only allows everyone to speak but also sets a tone of empathy and understanding.
- Two Truths and a Lie: Each participant shares three statements about themselves – two truths, and one lie. The rest of the team tries to guess which statement is the lie. This can be a fun way to learn more about each other and spark conversation.

Encourage camera usage: Encourage all participants to use their cameras. Studies show that meetings are generally more effective when participants can visually connect with one another. It helps to create a sense of community, encourages active participation, and enhances communication clarity.
Appoint a Facilitator and Tech Support: Assign one person to lead the discussion and keep the meeting on track (Facilitator). Appoint another person to handle any technical issues (Tech Support). This keeps the meeting focused and minimizes disruptions.
Establish meeting norms: At the beginning of the meeting, set some meeting norms such as one person speaking at a time, muting when not speaking, staying engaged, etc.
Use engagement tools: Use features like ‘Raise Hand’, polls, whiteboard, or Q&A to engage participants and gather feedback.
Monitor the chat: Keep an eye on the chat box for questions, comments, or technical issues that attendees may have.
Actively involve participants: Regularly invite comments, questions, or inputs from participants to maintain engagement.
Limit presentation length: If there’s a presentation, keep it brief. Prioritize discussion and conversation.
Appoint a jester: This person would have the authority to tell people when they are monopolizing conversations or drifting off-topic, helping keep the meeting on track.

After the Meeting

Summarize and assign next steps: At the end of the meeting, summarize the main points, decisions made, and assign tasks with clear deadlines.
Follow-up: Send a follow-up communication to all participants summarizing the meeting, the tasks assigned, and their deadlines.
Ask for feedback: Regularly seek feedback on how to improve future meetings.

By implementing the strategies outlined in this checklist, you can create an environment that encourages engagement and collaboration. Remember, the success of a virtual meeting does not merely rely on the technology used; how we communicate and interact with each other is just as important. Here’s to better and more productive virtual meetings in the future!

How have you implemented strategies to improve your virtual meetings? We’d love to hear your experiences, insights, or questions about mastering virtual meetings. Share your experiences, insights, or questions. Leave a comment below, send us an email, or connect with us on Twitter.

The post Mastering Virtual Meetings: A Comprehensive Checklist for Success appeared first on CHCI.

Are Your Internal Communication Tools Doing More Harm Than Good?

admin — Tue, 18 May 2021 08:26:27 +0000

Guest post by Kyle Sabraw

There’s no arguing that the modern workplace has changed. Gone are the days of a 9-5, Monday through Friday desk job hidden inside of a cubicle. For better or for worse, our office has become wherever we happen to be.

Fully 43% of employees today consider themselves mobile or “deskless”. This means that your staff, management, or coworkers could be working in a different part of the building, or even a completely different time zone from you. While this has given both organizations and personnel greater freedom in their jobs, it also has given rise to a new set of challenges. Namely, how do you effectively communicate with a dispersed workforce? Are your current internal communication tools up to the task?

Email: The Crown Jewel Of Corporate Internal Communications is Losing its Value

For most of the past 25 years email has been the crown jewel for corporate internal communications. It made it easy to communicate with large groups of employees by sending out assignments, requests, or memos where they spend the most time—their desks.

The intranet also became indispensable. It became an important, centralized hub of information. Management, HR, and communications officers could post memos, news, or important files on a private Internet system, almost like a digital bulletin board.

This worked very well for a 20^th century workforce. Employees who were tied to their desks could check the intranet at their leisure, and get all important communications straight to their inbox.

It wasn’t without its problems though. Intranets and inboxes soon become bloated and hard to manage. We’ve all had mornings coming sitting down at out desk, combing through dozens of emails that popped up overnight, each one more important than the last. And, as companies grew, so did their intranets. Eventually, they become almost as large as the actual Internet.

Today’s workplace poses even more challenges. Not only is a not-insignificant portion of the American workforce mobile, but the way we get our information and consume media is changing as well.

Why Are Internal Communication Tools Failing?

“Millenials” are expected to make up 75% of the workforce by the year 2030. This demographic has grown up with the world at their fingertips. They have become used to being able to access almost everything they need with a few taps on the screen of their phone. Couple this with the fact that they are more likely to work remotely, and you can see how old communication methods are failing today’s employees.

According to a report by Dynamic Signal, modern employees are less engaged than ever, and internal communication tools are partly to blame.

Remote and deskless workers are being served important pieces of content and internal news and memos in a way that is convenient for them. Relying on email and intranet postings has gone from standard operating procedure to ineffective and inefficient.

These communication shortcomings have a real impact on businesses. Employees who feel “out of the loop” become disengaged from their jobs, and disengaged employees cost the U.S. economy half a trillion dollars a year.

So What’s the Solution To Communication With a Dispersed Workforce?

Solutions don’t seem so obvious, though.

“The No. 1 question that I’m asked at every conference is ‘How do I communicate with a dispersed workforce,’ ” said Mark Ragan, CEO and Publisher of Ragan Communications, “Yet amazingly, some companies are still literally putting up paper flyers around their offices, like in the break rooms. I’ll think, ‘What, are we in the 1990s?’ ”

Really, what organizations need to do is change the way they think. Instead of creating an information hub employees need to go to, or sending out email blasts to large sections of employees, take personalized and segmented information to them.

With an Employee Communication and Engagement Platform (or ECE), you can streamline your communication efforts and bring information directly to your employees. Mobile apps like these are quickly becoming the preferred way for forward-looking companies to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of their communication efforts. These ECEs can also give communications officers and HR personnel the data they need to measure how well they’re communicating. Open rates, click-throughs, and social shares can all give management the data they need to see what is working and what isn’t.

ECEs are bringing companies into the 21^st century, and by having the most up-to-date technologies and tools, companies can also attract and retain the best and most qualified talent.

Don’t Ignore the Employee Experience

Employee experience is also becoming an important part of the recruiting and hiring process for companies today. Millennial employees are looking at more than just compensation when deciding which jobs to take and which organizations to work for. Offering an exceptional employee experience, which includes open and efficient lines of communication, is a major tool for HR managers to hire the best personnel possible. Modern employees are no longer impressed by flashy intranet pages and employee portals. They are now demanding something designed and catered to their preferred methods of communication.

History is littered with the remains of companies that didn’t innovate. Times change quickly, and technology changes even quicker. Methods, skills, and knowledge can become obsolete in the blink of an eye. Organizations that don’t grow and embrace the fast paced change of modern technology are bound to be left behind.

Will your company be one of them?

Leave a comment below, send us an email, or find us on Twitter.

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The post Are Your Internal Communication Tools Doing More Harm Than Good? appeared first on CHCI.