Meetings will always be part of your remote work, especially now that communication is a crucial part of being a virtual assistant. Since you are far from the office, you would only depend on meetings to touch base with your co-workers about your tasks, projects, or even issues that need resolution.

However, not all meetings are done properly. There are times that a call with team members turns out to be a waste of time. This also causes delay for the workers’ pending activities given the time consumed by the meeting.

If you want to make your meetings more effective, there are ways that can easily be done:

Determine if a meeting is indeed necessary. There are topics that can be discussed via e-mail or a quick call instead. This is why a meeting that may take up to half an hour or more should be concentrated on matters that require a long deliberation. 

Be reminded that you have to consider each worker’s availability. Furthermore, there are times that a meeting may already be repetitive. It is best to eliminate it so everyone could take advantage of maximizing their work time for more important tasks.

Make sure that an outcome would be obtained. To ensure this, it is best to create an agenda for the meeting. If every participant of the meeting would be made aware of what he or she would input, things would be much quicker and easier. 

For instance, in the first part of the meeting, the topics at hand would be discussed in detail. If it is an ongoing project, then the overview and current status could be talked about. Afterward, the next steps may be reviewed. Lastly, goals for the next meeting may be conferred about.

Be open to exchange of ideas. Even if you lead the meeting or you are superior among all participants, it is best to be open to everyone’s thoughts. A meeting is supposed to serve as a table for everyone to offer what they think is best for the organization and its concerns.

If there are conflicting conceptions, then weighing the pros and cons should be done together. This would be fair to all and the best plan would definitely be recognized.

Eliminate distractions. A good example of meeting distraction is background noise. This could affect not only the person with the background noise, but the rest of the people in the call. 

There are times that one cannot converse well when they hear unnecessary noises. Moreover, there are also cases that one holds himself or herself back to speak since whenever they do, their background may be heard by the rest of the people. This makes them mute themselves all throughout the conversation.

Fortunately, there is a solution to this distraction, which is using a headset with noise-cancelling feature. Alternatively, finding a conducive workspace is a way to go.

Another instance is technology glitch, which will not only put off the participants but possibly delay the meeting. To prevent this, it is best to test the software application you will use for the call for errors or updates beforehand. It is also sensible to use one that everyone considers convenient to utilize in order to set up the meeting with ease.

Invite the right people for the discussion. Meetings become ineffective whenever the people that should be involved are not present. This goes the same if there are too many invitees in the meeting, who would not be able to participate at all since they are not directly involved in the agenda.

Make sure that the agenda should be your basis whenever selecting the participants. For instance, if the urgent recruitment of part-timers is the subject of the meeting, then the relevant people in the Human Resources Department should be invited. If there are certain departments requiring the mentioned part-timers, then their representatives should also be present. In such a way, they could impart what they need for a more effective headhunting.

The provided tips in making meetings effective will save not only you but your team members in wasting resources for discussions that do not result in any good outcome. Always opt for a meeting that solves problems, encourages results, and connects people.