Meetings have always been a pillar of the business world, and they’re not going anywhere. According to Bain & Company, as reported by the Harvard Business Review, 15 percent of an organization’s collective time is spent in meetings. But as technologies change, workloads increase and attention spans shorten, truly reaching your audience can be a challenge.
One major hurdle is addressing an audience across multiple locations. From attendees sitting in a conference room to participants tuning in from various enterprise or home connections, your audience should feel involved and that their time and efforts are appreciated. With sentiments like 18 percent of employees saying they’d rather take a trip to the DMV than attend a status meeting (according to Clarizen), this sometimes feels like an uphill battle.
Reaching your meeting attendees shouldn’t be a struggle. Use these tips to master the necessary techniques to keep your meeting attendees engaged and happy. Who knows? Maybe your next meeting will be the most productive.
Tip 1: Make joining pain-free—Downloads, lost audio PINs, information missing from calendar invites: Everyone’s stumbled across these hurdles to join a meeting. Streamline the process with convenient meeting invites that include all the necessary information attendees need to join your meeting. To make things simple, find a meeting solution that offers automatic authentication for your organization and supports a smooth, one-click meeting join experience.
Tip 2: Allow for multiple presenters—Give everyone who needs to present the ability to do so, regardless of where they are. Meeting solutions that offer seamless presenter transitions make this possible, and provide an uninterrupted flow to keep everyone’s attention on the content being presented.
Tip 3: Show, don’t tell, important information—Effective visual communication is key to employee engagement in meetings. Show videos, presentations, websites, pictures and presenters themselves—instead of a static image that’s easy to ignore. On-site employees shouldn’t get a different meeting experience or information from people tuning in from other locations. Online meeting and broadcast solutions enable you to present to everyone, without interruption.
Tip 4: Allow for feedback, comments and engagement—If employees feel that they can’t ask questions or get involved in a meeting, they’re likely to tune it out. From Q&A sections in your meeting solution software to instant polls, questions and group instant messaging within the online meeting, give your attendees the opportunity to chime in so you know they’re still following along.
Tip 5: Use multi-device access—Giving meeting attendees the freedom to choose which devices they use to tune in is also more likely to hold their engagement through the duration of your meeting. It gives everyone the freedom to participate however works best for them: on-the-go, at their desk or from anywhere their devices are connected to the internet.
Interested in learning more about how to hold the best meeting or online broadcast? Skype for Business and Skype Meeting Broadcast give meeting organizers and attendees everything they need. Check out The Ultimate Meeting Guide and discover how to host large-scale virtual meetings like a pro to create the best possible meetings for your organization.
The post 5 tips to better engage your meeting attendees appeared first on Office Blogs.