In a recent survey of workers, a meager 20% reported actively participating in the video conferences. The remaining respondents were doing other things, zoning out, or silently paying attention. Unfortunately, these survey results illustrate a major concern for many employers – keeping workers engaged during virtual meetings. There are some ways to break employees out of their silence during the conferences to make your video meetings more productive.
Start Your Presentation Off with a Strong Hook
Draw your participants in from the beginning. Start off with a strong hook to draw them in to make them feel the situation you want to address. You may choose a shocking statistic or share an emotional testimonial from a customer who had a problem your company solved. When you start your meeting with workers engaged, you have to work less hard to keep them interested.
Engage Workers in Problem Solving with Breakout Groups
Break up the conference by assigning workers in groups of two to three to tackle problems every five to ten minutes. Many video conference programs have the ability to assign breakout groups in which you can set small groups to talk to each other. Use these small groups frequently during the meeting. By requiring each participant to actively contribute to small group discussions, you will keep them from having their attention wane during the meeting.
Minimize Excessive Amounts of Data
Don’t drown your participants in long slide shows or video presentations. Reduce the amount of data presented to the bare minimum. If you want to share additional files or data, send the files to participants to look at during their free time. By reducing data discussed during the video conference to only the most vital pieces of information, you can keep participants’ attention because everything that you say will have greater importance. Plus, make sure that you have your setup for presentations arranged before the meeting. You will lose participant attention if they must wait for you to overcome tech problems.
Improve Your Video Conference Audio and Video with Help from Experience Audio Video
Make the most of your meetings by improving your conference room’s audio and video capabilities. Consult with us at Experience Audio Video in Orange County to get automation, video, audio, and other upgrades to help you make your meeting space and video conferences professional. Phone us at (714) 744-4455 today to get started on a better meeting space for both in-person and video conferences.