Many of us haven’t participated in as many video meetings in the last two years and months as we have. Virtual meetings started to replace in-person meetings for workers and businesses worldwide during the initial COVID-19 lockdowns. At the beginning of 2020, 200 million people were using Zoom alone every day, up from 10 million in December 2019. Virtual meetings are still regarded as being inferior to in-person meetings, despite being commonplace. However, since remote and hybrid forms of employment are here to stay, businesses must accept them and figure out how to maximize their benefits.

Benefits of virtual meetings

Fortunately, there is a lot of room for improvement here. While virtual meetings may not directly address the issues with productivity associated with meeting culture, they do have several advantages over in-person meetings. There is a significant chance to enhance the fundamental frameworks influencing our collaboration as we learn to adapt to hybrid working styles. As we eliminate previous inefficiencies, it would be wise for everyone to keep in mind the main advantages of virtual meetings.

• Less time wasted:

The amount of planning and logistics required for a meeting is typically far less with virtual assistant meetings than with in-person meetings. You won’t need to worry about making hotel reservations or if everyone invited will fit in your meeting venue if they show up. Whether or not specific individuals are even in the workplace that day is not a consideration. Additionally, it can take up to 10 or 15 minutes to physically walk to a meeting room as people rush to finish their tasks, use the restroom urgently, or prepare a drink before leaving their desks. All of that vanishes when you dial in at the designated time.

• Costing is easy:

When all of your meetings are conducted electronically, it is really simple to calculate how much time is spent by your business on various catch-ups and communications. If you wish to track the distribution of time across many projects or if you are invoicing for all client time, this is essential. You can immediately identify which meetings cost you the most money with an accurate digital record of all meeting times (both in time and money). Your team may precisely document the length of each meeting, the participants, and any follow-up work it generated by setting up a work hours tracker.

• Easy to decline:

Almost all of us have been annoyed when attending a meeting that we had no business attending. No matter how frustrating it is, it’s still difficult to get up in front of our co-workers and leave the meeting—no matter how plausible our justification may be. It’s considerably simpler and less embarrassing to leave a meeting in a virtual setting if it’s not relevant to you. Of course, one of the most practical justifications is that we need to immediately join another crucial video meeting.

• Less chit-chat:

A narrower agenda also means that needless small talk and pleasantries are cut out. Although it’s nice to be cordial, we shouldn’t waste time chit-chatting for no reason. Ideally, your team will set aside specific virtual spaces for catching up. Meetings may remain productive and on-task without having to engage in awkward small talk. Additionally, it prevents meetings from being substituted for safety procedures or team building exercises. Building relationships with co-workers has its place and time, and an essential video meeting isn’t generally one of them.

• Ease of refusing:

Virtual meetings not only make it simpler for you to leave if you decide they are irrelevant or unproductive, but they also make it simpler for you to opt-out in advance. It’s no great deal to decline or say “maybe” in response to a digital meeting invitation. You won’t likely feel embarrassed about doing that, but in the workplace, it might be challenging to decline a coworker or manager’s invitation to join a meeting. By avoiding workplace politics, it is simpler to protect time for meaningful work that is genuinely important. Read More…