Remote Meetings in 2024: Everything You Need to Know

With fewer companies obligating their employees to go back to the office, remote and hybrid work are becoming the norm. But are remote meetings just as effective as those held in person? This article delves into the effectiveness of remote meetings and what you can do to improve virtual meetings in 2024. 

Key Takeaways

• With remote and hybrid work becoming the norm, it’s difficult to maintain the cohesion and effectiveness in remote meetings.
• Recording key points during the meetings is of utmost importance to keeping your team involved and up to date with all the takeaways after a meeting. 
• When recording meetings in a hybrid team setup, make sure that every member of your team feels included and not left out and isolated.

Quick Summary

According to a recent survey by Zippia, 67% of workers are distracted during remote meetings. The report also states that workers are mostly annoyed by the number of unnecessary meetings that could’ve been an email. 

It’s also worth noting that around 47% of surveyed respondents claim that in-person meetings are more beneficial to them. How do you address this? If your team is fully remote, it’s physically impossible to make them come to the office for a meeting. Continue reading this article if you’re struggling with running virtual meetings with your team. 

Best ways to run productive virtual meetings:

• Create Housekeeping Rules. Establish the meeting etiquette early on, including muting microphones when not speaking and taking breaks during long meetings. Send the meeting invite timely and ensure each team member gets it. 
• Respect Attendee Time. Schedule meetings smartly. Be considerate when scheduling calls to make sure the meeting won’t affect your team members’ private time.
• Record Key Points. Make sure to capture action items and decisions so team members can be informed and accountable about future steps. 
• Introduce New Hires. Introduce new team members during the meetings and keep your team well-informed about how they should welcome them. 
• Make Time for Small Talk. Ensure there’s time for informal conversations to strengthen team bonds.
• Encourage Team Members to Use Camera. Promote the use of cameras during meetings, especially when introducing a new member. That will help create a transparent ambient similar to in-person meetings. 
• Let Others Share Their Thoughts. Enable the team members to have equal opportunities to speak and share insights. 
• Reward Effort & Achievements. Recognize achievements and reward proactive team members who engage in team meetings and work on common objectives.
• Make Meetings More Engaging. With engagement, meetings become more successful. Use icebreakers and team-building activities. Identify challenges for remote team members and make meetings more productive and engaging.

Working with a remote or hybrid team shouldn’t be a punishment. It’s still possible to create structured meetings with productive outcomes even when working with multicultural teams across different time zones. 

With Kanban Zone, you’ll get a tool that can help you maximize remote team effort and productivity. Schedule a free coaching session to get started. 

If you want to learn more about running successful virtual meetings, continue reading this article and learn about the benefits of online meetings as well as the challenges of remote work and meetings.  

How do Remote Meetings Work?

A virtual meeting is a type of meeting where participants utilize modern technology like laptops, cameras, microphones, and other equipment to run meetings. Depending on the management methods your team works under, you may have meetings anywhere from once to a couple of times per week. 

Usually, organizations that work with remote teams will provide you with everything you need to participate in video conferencing meetings without struggles. Remote team leaders have the responsibility to ensure that the meeting runs smoothly and use the right video conferencing software. 

As audio and network quality deeply affect the video conferencing experience, it’s of utmost importance for remote team members to have the resources to run team meetings. 

Remote work meetings require surprisingly less preparation compared to on-site ones. All you need is to be present by turning on your camera and microphone, making sure you are in a relatively silent room, but even that can be overcome through noise canceling. 

This will ensure transparency, and your team members will be able to hear and see you, making it easier for them to tune into the discussion and take part in the whole proceeding.

Benefits of Running Remote Team Meetings

Needless to say, there are plenty of benefits to moving your meetings online. We’ll discuss the benefits of remote meetings.  

Increased Flexibility

With online meetings, you have more flexibility in organizing your workday. You can finish your daily tasks without having to spend a long time in the office. Instead, you can prioritize different types of tasks and then block time specifically for the meeting, without being called to one abruptly. 

Moreover, with remote team meetings, you can meet the company’s needs despite the varying time zones, which is more inclusive towards scheduling within an organization. Lastly, you’ll have the flexibility to manage your personal and professional obligations more effectively. 

Cost Reduction

With less commuting, your team members will save more money than they’d spend on traveling to the office. This includes the reduction of transportation costs through tickets or taxi/Uber services, as well as reduced fuel costs. 

Through video meetings, you’ll undoubtedly reduce the operational costs of office supplies, utilities, and materials that are necessary during on-site meetings. 

After you end a remote meeting, you can provide a video recording of the meeting to your employees. Additionally, you can use an AI transcription tool to ensure nothing is missing. 

Enhanced Accessibility

Thanks to a diverse set of tools for collaboration, online meetings are becoming a beacon of inclusivity. Not only is accessibility guaranteed, but team members with health and mobility challenges can join the meeting without any difficulties.

That way, everyone can contribute their insights and skills, unhindered by physical limitations or distances posed by in-office meetings. 

Boosted Productivity & Work-Life Balance

Remote team meetings can boost productivity, contributing to the overall work-life balance in the workspace. As mentioned earlier, virtual gatherings can help employees manage their time more effectively. 

They eliminate commuting, excess waiting, and other challenges of working at the office and focus on high-priority tasks with fewer distractions. 

Also, if you’re a remote-first team, your team members have the flexibility to work from various locations, enhancing the balance between professional responsibilities and personal life. With more time at hand and better organizational skills, the productivity of your team will thrive. 

Better Cross-Team Collaboration

If your organization consists of multiple teams at multiple levels within the organization, then remote team meetings are the way to go. Collaboration and communication platforms revolutionized team interactions.

Now, teams can communicate and collaborate in real time, which enriches the creative process and reduces deadlines. Additionally, it amplifies the problem-solving and critical-thinking capabilities of the entire team. 

With a consistent flow of communication, employees perform regular check-ins and updates, which further contributes to transparency and open dialogue in the team. Digital meetings simply promote a dynamic workspace with collective intelligence and innovation thrive. 

Challenges of Remote Meetings

Despite the advantages, there are several challenges to hosting online meetings. Let’s list them below.

• Technical challenges – Unstable internet, software bugs, and compatibility problems can cause communication issues. Employees are also over-reliant on hardware and meeting software.
• Engagement challenges – Team members get easily distracted and struggle with maintaining attention and interaction.
• Time Zone Differences – This can cause scheduling conflicts for teams that work globally.
• Audio-Video Quality – Poor microphone and camera quality, as well as poor internet connection, can lead to decreased meeting quality. 
• Overlapping Communication – If you work in a large team, there can be a situation where communication overlaps by multiple people talking at the same time. 
• Meeting Fatigue – If there are many meetings throughout the week, it can cause mental fatigue and burnout in employees.
• Distractions – Employees who work from home, can easily be distracted by external noise, their family members, electrical appliances, or noisy neighbors. 
• Silos between departments: Remote workflow makes a further gap between different departments, leading to a lack of communication and collaboration. 
• Accessibility Issues – It’s important to keep in mind that not all tools are accessible to everyone. For example, if the company doesn’t provide a subscription to some service or product to everyone, some employees will struggle with accessibility. 
• Documentation Overload – Team members can get lost in keeping track of virtual discussions and decisions.    

How to Run Effective Remote Team Meetings in 2024?

The challenges of virtual meetings can discourage organizations from hosting them and transitioning to remote and hybrid setups in the first place. But it’s still possible to overcome these challenges. 

Before reading through the best practices for running remote meetings, let’s talk about what you can do before you start the meeting to make sure everyone will have a seamless experience and a chance to contribute equally.

Preparing for Your Remote Meeting

• Question the need for the meeting. Could it be an email instead of a meeting? Check the agenda you prepared and make sure that every point you cover in it needs to be addressed verbally.
• Choose the best tool. Next, choose the best tool for the job. You can host video conferences through plenty of tools like Zoom, Microsoft Teams, WebEx, and others. Choose the one that meets the unique needs of your team and ensures the communication is seamless. Also, make sure that remote workers have access to high-quality video and audio equipment.
• Share the meeting agenda ahead of time. This ensures everyone is ready for the meeting, as well as that the meeting stays on track. Your team members can use this agenda to note down any necessary questions or points they’d like to discuss. 
• Choose your topics wisely. Don’t waste your entire team’s time on hosting virtual one-on-ones. Take sensitive discussions offline or schedule a separate meeting with your particular coworkers. Save the team meetings for broader subjects that concern the whole group. 
• Schedule smartly. Aim for times that work well for everyone, especially if your team is spread across different time zones. Avoid late afternoons or the end of the week, when energy levels might be low.

Now that we have established these before-meeting boundaries, let’s talk about how to improve the remote meeting experience in 2024.

Create Housekeeping Rules

Good remote managers will always make sure to get the most technical details out of the way, as soon as possible. That said, set some housekeeping rules that prioritize the difficult and technical stuff first. It’s also a good idea to introduce remote workers to the meeting etiquette.

If the meeting is going to be long and involves presentations and other important details, remind your team members to mute their microphones and wait for their turn to talk before disrupting others in a sentence. 

In the case of a long meeting make virtual coffee breaks or general breaks that will allow the members to take a breather and stretch their legs. This will also help with focus and motivation, as people usually don’t like being in long meetings even in person.

Respect Attendee Time

Working with a remote team is fun and engaging, but it also has its difficulties. One of them is scheduling the meetings during lunch hours, early mornings, or late evenings.

Always make sure to schedule a meeting time that is suitable for everyone and won’t take away other people’s time. Although remote working includes some sacrifices, it’s still rewarding when your employees can focus solely on the meeting without feeling hungry or exhausted. 

One of the best ways to ensure that all team members you work with are on the same page and available is to use meeting scheduler apps. Some of them include:

• Calendly
• SavvyCall
• SimplyMeet.me
• Clara
• Cal.com

Additionally, when working with an international team, you need to take different timezones into account. Here are the most popular apps for that:

• World Time Buddy
• Timezone.io 
• timeanddate.com

Record Key Points

The practice of capturing action items, decisions, and other steps related to the meeting ensures that all members of the team are on the same page. Additionally, your team members will feel more accountable for their tasks and responsibilities. 

When you record the key points either through a video recording or AI taking, you can clearly specify who is responsible for what and by when and add it to a Google Docs file. This will make sure, the team can track progress more efficiently. 

Finally, recording key points can help you summarize the decisions made during the meeting and stay afloat when aligning the project’s direction. Your employees can follow up more easily and there’s a collective understanding and commitment to the project’s goals.

Here are some tools for recording remote meetings and taking notes for you:

• Notta
• Otter AI
• tl;dv
• Rev.ai
• Fireflies AI

Introduce New Hires

As a team leader, you should prioritize welcoming new hires during group meetings online. It will not only help encourage a sense of belonging and ease the intimidation of starting a new job, it’ll also help your team get to know new hires’ unique needs and approach them easier for completing certain tasks. 

New hires will appreciate this gesture and acknowledgment. Furthermore, this practice lays the foundation for an inclusive and supportive work ecosystem. 

Make Time for Small Talk

If you want to strengthen your team bonds within your organization, make some time for small talk. By engaging informally, your team members can connect more personally. 

This will also allow you to promote a more cohesive and supportive work environment, which is of crucial importance to remote team dynamics. 

Here are the 5 best questions you can ask your team members before more technical topics commence:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you TODAY? What do you need to be happy for 10 out of 10? (Measure the level of happiness with a magic ruler.)
2. What value do you bring to your team? (Make sure to not make it sound like criticizing, make sure the meeting runs smoothly.)
3. How would you improve yourself this week?
4. What would you wish for yourself today?
5. What are your key principal values that you think will help you complete your work this week?

Encourage Team Members to Use Camera

Maintaining transparent communication online can be difficult. That’s why many remote teams recommend that the teams use cameras whenever possible. This applies especially when new hires are waiting to be introduced or during important meetings.

Due to the internet or some other issues, it’s not always possible to keep the camera on, which is why leaders should prioritize employee well-being and respect personal boundaries. 

Let Others Share their Thoughts

As a team leader, you should have the main word, but also, you need to let others speak and share their findings. Ensuring that everyone has a chance to speak in remote meetings will help uncover diverse insights and potential obstacles. 

Make sure to always divide speaking time equally. Each team member should have a chance to share updates and express their unique concerns. 

At first, not everyone will have the confidence to speak, but you’ll be able to practice a culture of openness. Additionally, your team members will feel like they can freely exchange ideas and be a proactive part of the organization. 

Reward Effort & Achievements

A remote meeting is an amazing opportunity to recognize both individual and team efforts. It’s always good to talk about achievements because that will not only work as motivation but also a second wind for less confident coworkers. 

This practice will allow you to boost your team’s morale and recognize the importance of hard work within the organization. Whether in one-on-one sessions or larger group settings, highlighting successes promotes a positive team dynamic and encourages continued excellence.

Make Meetings More Engaging

Your team members should be proactive during these meetings, so it’s important to make them feel heard. Make sure to share everything you need your team members to hear, and then focus on hearing them out.

Introduce icebreakers and team-building activities at the meeting to see what your team members are up to. Identify their struggles and challenges and come up with ideas and suggestions that will help them overcome these problems. Your online meeting room is more than just an office, it’s a reservoir of ideas taken from different perspectives and even cultures. 

Set Action Items and Track Goals

Meetings have become a staple of the modern workplace. But if no required actions are taken once the meeting is over, you won’t be able to achieve your goals.

Using a powerful Kanban tool like Kanban Zone, you can easily track your objectives and goals, set action items in cards, and even mirror them to strengthen collaboration between different teams and departments. This will strengthen your remote work environment and lay the foundation for future meetings.

At the end of the meeting, make sure to share meeting notes and that every remote worker gets them. That will boost the efficiency of your remote environment and lead to better results. 

How to Conduct Effective Virtual Meetings in a Hybrid Team Setup

No matter what you think, it’s still possible to add both your remote and office workers to the meeting room and work on your ideas and goals online. 

Most of the aforementioned practices and tips refer both to remote and hybrid team members. It’s always crucial to use reliable technology and the right online meeting tool. 

Make sure to always keep your agendas clean and clear and ensure all team members are proficient with the tools they use both for meetings and work.

With some team members, you’ll be able to host face-to-face meetings, but for any bigger plans and ideas, it’s of utmost importance to include your entire team, no matter where they are. 

Still, for coworkers who work in the office, you can host an in-person meeting or one-on-one, as that might be more comfortable for both. However, make sure that the entire team is up to date with recent decisions and plans. 

Lastly, foster inclusivity and transparency by introducing strategies like round-robin speaking for more effective remote meetings. More importantly, knowing that not everyone can make it to the meeting, make sure to record them so they have a clear understanding of your team’s future steps. 

Lead Remote Team Meetings with Kanban

Whether you’re running group meetings or individual remote meetings, it’s of utmost importance to keep your team up to date with future goals and actions you’re going to take in the upcoming Sprints and projects.

Although apps like Zoom and Microsoft Team Meetings offer a seamless experience for meetings, you need to figure out what’s next. Where will you share your agenda, what work items are assigned to which team member, and are some tasks too complex and need to be delegated?

Kanban Zone offers a robust and powerful solution, ideal for both hybrid and remote teams. Crafted by a remote-first team, we prioritize flexibility, workflow optimization, and efficiency. Run a productive remote meeting and get your objectives done before the Sprint ends, try Kanban Zone free and find out why most effective remote teams rely on it!