Effectively WFH & Conduct Virtual Meetings
- Set a regular working day routine at home and stick with it.
- Be twice as patient as you would have otherwise - there is probably a good reason that person is not respond as quickly as you feel they should have.
- Resist the urge to micromanage your team due to not seeing things in motion as you once did or right away.
- Delegate, challenge people and trust them. Trust (but proper verify) is the key to a successful team.
- Make sure to have regular one-on-one meetings with core team members. Besides talking about work, you should also talk about life and feelings to build rapport.
- Create a WhatsApp or FB group, share life’s nit bits, gifs, videos etc. to increases autonomy and provides a community feeling (This is optional).
- Introduce each meeting with stating common ground rules like everybody turns on video to be seen, or when the break will be for a long meeting…
- At the start, review the agenda and objectives of the meeting.
- At the end, make a conclusion and action items including due date if necessary.
- Remember to leave a short written message if you HAVE to leave a virtual meeting room while others are talking, or mention it upfront.
- Use a good headphone (if possible), know when and how to ask questions, how to mute/unmute, share screens and files etc. Mute your phone if you are not talking.
- Try to use David Rock's SCARF method to induce PMA (Positive Mental Aattitude) at the start of meetings.
- Make it highly interactive by using collaboration tools such as TEAM, Google Meet, Miro, Mural, Cardboardit, etc. Or-
- Assign some preparatory work to the team ahead of time, then ask their feedbacks/answers during the meeting
- Ask each team member to lead and drive the discussions
- Ask a team member to take minutes (domain-wise) so that they will be more attentive
- Keep soliciting views, comments in round-robin manner so that people will contribute to the meeting
- Announce some (token or otherwise) reward for contributing maximum suggestions or comments which are accepted and reasonable, if situation permits
- Make a poll of questions (You need to prepare the meaningful questions then use a tools, such as Slido, WebEx)
- Let them know from the start that at the end of the meeting, each person will be assigned activities and/or deliverables
- Avoid the eagerness to overwork. Know when to stop, reserve time to relax.
- Schedule regular time to exercise for your health and work performance.
- Improve you workplace at home (e.g. put shades on windows, have a 2nd/3rd monitor, have a coffee/tea maker near your workstation, have a shirt available to put on before a video conference, install a front light, select a nice background…).
- Situate your home office as far away from your refrigerator as possible.
- Make sure your small children or pets are safe, quiet and not in the same room when you are in a conference call.
