If you’re looking for ways to reconnect with your workmates or keep your team engaged and productive, collaborative virtual team building can be a perfect solution. This is a new way to keep your team engaged following the remote work setups introduced by some companies.
Thanks to technological advancements, companies are now finding innovative ways to onboard new staff, boost their morale, and link management and staff, among other administrative functions. These are changing how people relate with each other in the online working space, and it trickles down to businesses hosting company virtual events.
For full participation by your team, you must be innovative and ensure that your meetings have a collection of fun-filled activities. Here are seven ways to host a collaborative virtual team meeting:
1. Use Icebreaker Quizzes
It’s crucial to make everyone in the meeting feel relaxed and comfortable to talk and contribute ideas in a meeting. So, the first thing to do is break the silence or awkwardness of a remote working environment.
You can start a conversation unrelated to the virtual meeting agenda or ask icebreaker questions to help calm everyone down. It will help the meeting participants open up and instantly change their moods.
For instance, you can ask what their weekend plans are or what they ate for breakfast. The response can spark laughter in the meeting, making your team feel at ease talking and sharing their views.
2. Create An Engaging Presentation
If you want the team to remain attentive, you must ensure that the content of your virtual meeting is rich in fun activities. Consider engaging them in a friendly conversation while presenting the agenda during the session.
In addition, ensure that you keep it short and concise to avoid them zoning out and forcing you to repeat the same points again. You can incorporate color schemes in your presentation to break down the facts and make them easy to follow. Likewise, ensure you have a stable internet connection to support your meeting.
3. Conduct Polls Frequently
It’s easy to make a presentation from your virtual workstation and assume that everyone who signed in is present. Conducting a poll will help you keep track of the participants and assign them real-time tasks to improve engagement.
You can send out questionaries to support your polls exercise or ask simple questions about your virtual meeting agenda. It can be a strategy to collect data, analyze feedback, and make critical decisions about your proposal or presentation.
4. Plan Virtual Team-Building Activities
If a large team is attending your virtual meeting, you might want to plan team-building activities and communicate the procedures in advance. It’s a bonding opportunity, and your team can learn soft skills such as problem-solving that can significantly improve productivity in your business.
For example, you can ask them to research business opportunities and the possibility of becoming an authority in the market. Upon completion, they can present it in your virtual meeting and discuss it for more ideas.
5. Introducing Games In Between The Meeting
All work with no play dulls your online meeting, and your team might not look forward to the next one. You can leverage gamification to bring some fun to your virtual meeting.
Introducing games in your virtual meetings will keep your participants intrigued and always look forward to the next segment of your presentation. Moreover, you’ll capture your team’s attention and get the information across as required.
6. Be A Listener
Being a host means running the show, and everyone invited should follow your lead. However, growing a business becomes hard as the team can become complaisant and just wait for your ideas.
Thus, it’s wise to have an open forum and allow contributions from your participants by listening to what they have to say. You’ll pick more points to improve and increase productivity while having fun in your meeting. Besides, you’ll engage in creative conversations to help with business growth.
7. Find An Appropriate Time
Remote working comes with freedom, and your team might use some time away from personal development. You must factor in such possibilities when planning your virtual meeting and ask when your team is available to attend your virtual meeting.
Additionally, you can use the digital calendar and invite them, considering the time difference if they are in separate time zones across the globe. It will ensure you get real-time participation and a successful virtual meeting.
Final Thoughts
Hosting a fun and collaborative virtual meeting involves planning to ensure your team enjoys your time with you. Consider several factors influencing how well you conduct your meetings. Hence, be creative when preparing to host a virtual meeting. Furthermore, have a meeting outline to show planned activities that can boost team engagement while discussing crucial points of the plan.
