Nowadays, remote work is becoming the new normal in most companies, making them rely on video conferencing applications like Zoom to hold team meetings. In fact, according to a 2022 report by Zippia, a total of 300 million individuals use the Zoom app every day. However, some business owners find it hard to maximize Zoom, which draws them back or makes them stagnant in their meeting progress.
That’s why it’s essential to learn about the following tips that can make Zoom meetings productive for your company.
1. Record Meetings
It’s possible that when businesses organize meetings, not every staff member will attend, and that’s why recording meetings are essential. Workers absent from meetings can always ask for the recordings and go through them to understand everything discussed. Also, there’re moments when you may forget some things, and only the recordings can aid your remembrance.
You can record Zoom meetings by:
- Hovering the mouse over the bottom of the Zoom window
- Clicking on the appearing Zoom icon
- Saving recordings to the Cloud or a folder in your computer
2. Encourage Idea Conflicts
When running a Zoom call, sometimes, the aim may be to make decisions as a team collectively. However, employees may feel uncomfortable if the proper manner of encouraging idea conflicts isn’t correctly done.
Encouraging people to give their opinions about ideas can be done by:
- Indicating the questions raised
- Emphasizing things that team members should consider
- Moderating the meeting in a prudent manner
People will find it easier to express themselves and get encouragement to challenge suggested choices.
3. Combine Zoom With Other Tools Already in Use
For fully remote businesses, it’s essential to connect the Zoom application to other tools used in the workflow. This makes the meeting effective and straight to the point because the integrated applications aid the necessary activities.
Some of the tools that can work with Zoom to run meetings smoothly are:
- Google Suite
- Zapier
- Slack
These tools help to automate activities and events, which aligns with operations carried out by Zoom.
4. Protect Meetings With Passwords
Doesn’t it feel awkward holding online meetings where privacy isn’t guaranteed? That’s why, to have an effective and valuable meeting, it’s essential to use password protection.
With the Zoom app, you can use password protection at the following levels:
- Personal meeting level
- Group level
- Entire account for all meetings level
Putting password requirements or lock settings can be done if you are the admin or owner of the account used for meetings.
5. Select a Meeting Time Carefully
Frankly, there’s no particular rule that prescribes a specific time for a meeting. However, from a professional point of view and experience, some days bring better outcomes when meetings are held. It’s essential to select periods for holding Zoom meetings wisely if the meeting should be a productive one.
Here are some tips on how to choose the best time for running a zoom call:
- Schedule meetings on less stressful days
- Ensure not to hold meetings during the middle of the week
- Consider scheduling a video conversation period during the early afternoon
6. Inform Teams About the Discussion Topics
Interestingly, most people love to contribute wholeheartedly to conversations in which they are familiar with the subject. One of the ways to make a Zoom call productive is by ensuring that teams have an idea about what’s to be discussed in a meeting.
This can be done by:
- Generating a list of topics
- Imploring teams to assemble opinions about the subject (before holding the meeting)
- Sticking with the topics during the meeting
Besides having a well-organized meeting, teams can contribute effectively to the topics discussed and arrive at excellent decisions.
7. Use an Appropriate Background
Since remote working is the order of the day, almost everyone is carrying out their duties from the comfort of their homes. Having an appropriate background is very important to avoid distractions during zoom meetings. Zoom allows people to change their background if they want a better one.
You can use the following steps to change your zoom background:
- Open the app on desktop
- Navigate the mouse to settings > preferences > background and filters > virtual backgrounds
- Choose a pre-existing image or click on + to upload your image
8. Conduct Meeting in a Quiet Location
The zoom app is created in a way that it can easily pick up noises emanating from the background. That’s why it’s necessary to ensure that locations being used for meetings are silent to prevent interruptions and allow Zoom to carry out its operation accurately.
You can ensure silence is enforced during meetings by:
- Muting microphones (either yours or other team members) to allow people to speak
- Using a headset or earphones
- Applying noise cancellation software
Having a quiet location helps companies to hold their Zoom meetings smoothly.
Final Words
Although companies experience hanging during video meetings, it can be a learning experience for teams. Applying the best practices for a video meeting can improve your team’s efficiency and productivity. Using tips like encouraging idea conflicts, recording, and conducting meetings in a silent location can help to make video conferences well-structured and much more exciting!
