No doubt COVID-19 has changed the way that your employees interact with each other. With over 62% of workers now doing their jobs from home since the pandemic began, the vast majority of employee interaction is now done over video conferencing services like Zoom.
The problem that many employers are currently facing is that many employees aren’t engaging as much during Zoom meetings as they do in face-to-face meetings.
What can be done to improve employee engagement over Zoom? Let’s take a look at a few proven ideas.
Openly Encourage More Engagement
Sometimes all it takes to improve employee engagement during virtual meetings on Zoom is to really encourage your employees to get more involved in the discussions.
Even better, asking workers to bring their own talking points into the meeting will help to organically create more discussion and bring forward problems, issues, and solutions that you have not have been aware of.
Set Expectations
Before each Zoom meeting begins, give employees solid direction on what will be expected from them in the meeting. Require that every attendee come to the meeting with at least three relevant points to bring up with the team and discuss in further detail.
Beyond that, set a loose expectation that each meeting attendee must give at least some feedback on each point brought up in the meeting.
This will help keep engagement flowing naturally.
Don’t Be Afraid of Temporary Silence
Silence in a meeting is uncomfortable. It’s common for a meeting leader to break the silence by talking even more than they had planned on talking.
However, the longer you hold the silence during a meeting, the more likely your employees will open up and start discussing things on their minds.
Don’t be afraid of a 15 – 20 second time of silence during your next meeting. Hold your tongue and find out what kind of employee engagement may happen spontaneously.
Meetings Have Changed
For many of us, it seems like the old days of in-person meetings are a thing of the past. In fact, 74% of CFOs surveyed expect that employees will continue working remotely after COVID-19.
This makes improving employee engagement over Zoom a vital part of doing business both now and in the future.