Adding A Creative Approach To Your Virtual Team Meetings And Events

After the emergence of Covid-19 and the shake-up of working environments all around the globe, remote meetings have become integral components of company workflows. Furthermore, in specific teams whose team members are living all over the world, remote meetings are the only method of communication. 

However, executives and managers usually consider face-to-face meetings more productive than remote ones, which is generally true. Still, these days, it’s pretty inevitable for remote meetings and collaborations to be adopted, which brings us to this article.

Suppose you find yourself in such a situation where you must regularly organize virtual team meetings or events. In that case, you should remember that in order to improve the productivity of these meetings and make your employees get just as much out of them as they do from regular face-to-face meetings. Put differently, you need to make these meetings as enjoyable as possible because it’s very easy for participants to tune out if they lack genuine engagement.

But how can you make your virtual team meetings and events more engaging and fun for your employees? The short answer to this question is by adding a creative and fun approach to them. But, please keep reading for the long answer, which is full of potential ideas of how you can achieve that.

Invest In A Virtual Meeting Platform 

If you hold a lot of virtual meetings or events each week, you probably need to invest in some of the best event platforms in 2022 that fit your company’s needs. These platforms can be used to host spotless meetings, company presentations, team-building activities, fun competitions, virtual happy hours, and just about any virtual type of event that you can think of. 

If you want your remote workers to be fully engaged, you should first provide them with the resources they need to truly engage and interact. When selecting the best platform for your needs, consider what’s really needed for your online meetings and events. Do you need a platform that will empower you to observe people’s responses? Will it be required for you to handle huge audiences? Or, would you need to use other forms of media during your meetings and share screens?

Conduct a thorough audit of your company’s requirements, prioritize all factors that will bring your employees closer, find the right virtual meeting and event platform, and provide them with what they need.

Bring Some Unexpected Entertainment To Your Meetings

Next, even if you subscribe to the best virtual meeting platform to provide your workers with the best possible resources in order to be engaged in your meetings, you will still need to think about how can you make those events more enjoyable for everyone by incorporating fun activities during the sessions. 

These could be straightforward activities or inquiries that all participants can engage in, which can definitely stimulate their creative side. And if you don’t know where and how to start, you can give chance to some of the following fun activities:

• Playing online games. These games could be something as straightforward as rock, paper, scissors, or you can go further and organize a quiz game. However, as the person in charge, it will be your full responsibility to make sure that the games don’t encourage unhealthy levels of rivalry or become unfriendly in the workplace.
• Dance party. You can opt to hold your virtual dance party incorporated into an existing online gathering or you can hold it as a separate fun event. In fact, nobody will need to present their latest dance moves, as you can all simply dance to the beat of a song that will go in the background. Virtual dance parties can help boost team energy, eliminate awkward silences, and improve teamwork during these meetings. 
• Take a picture of your shoes. Finally, before a particular meeting, you can ask your team meeting participants to share a photo of their shoes and start the meeting by asking each employee about their shoe choice and the reason behind it. One might wear flip-flops, while others might wear running shoes. You can further customize this creative activity by demanding each participant to take a snap of an item on their desk and then discuss it.

Embrace Visual Elements In Your Sessions 

Lastly, you probably know all there is to know about how the lack of visual presence is a really big problem in virtual surroundings. When on a video call, most people are usually checking their own appearance to see if the look of their faces, facial expressions, and body language are suitable to the occasion. However, have you ever thought of communicating with them while using eye-catching visuals? 

You can, for example, add animated GIFs and other props to your camera to make your meetings more fun and entertaining. Or, you can also make everyone use videos as their virtual backgrounds to ensure that everything stays connected and conveys the right meaning.  

Final Words

Irrespective of how often your virtual meetings and events are taking place, you can use particular techniques to drive participation, engagement, and fun. Due to the nature of remote work setups, employees who enjoy the opportunity to work from home or somewhere else usually have fewer opportunities for enjoyment and camaraderie. Nevertheless, by adding fun and creative elements to your next sessions, you can increase their morale and build better teamwork.