Guidelines for attending a meeting
Meetings have been the main source of communication and interaction in offices and workspaces for ages. It can be formal or informal, online or offline but there are still some guidelines that if followed will be beneficial for all such as employees, employers and clients.
Guidelines for attending a meeting (Virtual)
- Prepare agenda: Ask for the agenda and prepare beforehand, it will help you to get the outline of the meeting and understand it well.
- Dress appropriately: Although the pandemic changed our regular jobs into remote work it is still unprofessional to show up in a meeting wearing pyjamas or undone hair. So always dress appropriately for the meetings even you are not required to turn on your camera.
- Background and surroundings: When having an online meeting, one has to take care that there are no noises in your surrounding and you are sitting in a quiet place so that you’ll be able to focus on the meeting. Along with that, it is better to have a plain background during meetings so that it’s not distracting for other participants too.
- Microphone: Mute the microphone if you do not need it at the time as keeping the microphone on adds background noises to the meeting even if you are staying silent.
- Camera: When your privacy camera, go ahead and switch off the camera too as it can save some bandwidth and speed up the process
- Do not eat during meetings: Snacking during a meeting may seem tempting but try to avoid it as much as possible because it will not only hamper your concentration in the meeting but you’ll become a nuisance for the group if caught.
- Speaking etiquettes: It is important to introduce yourself and greet others on entering the virtual meetings especially if set-up them. Also, do not speak over somebody or interrupt them and if done mistakenly, apologise right away.
- Setup familiarity: It is important to get familiar with the meeting’s set-up beforehand so that you won’t embarrass yourself during the meetings or disturb others during presentations. Get to know the software on which the meetings are held regularly and clarify all your doubts beforehand for a smooth meeting later.
- Concentrate: When in a virtual meeting, everybody can look at your facial expressions so always look at the camera, be present mentally too and speak clearly when asked.
- Typing on Keyboard: A lot of us like to take notes of the meeting or you may feel like answering your emails during this time but typing these on the keyboard can be quite distracting for others because the microphone is usually very near to the keyboard. Instead, use a pen and paper.
- Screen-sharing precautions: If your work requires you to share your screen during meetings, remember to remove any sensitive or private information from the screen. Also, it is better to turn off the notifications during that time and try to keep your desktop clean too.
- Effective wrap-up: If you are the one hosting the meeting, plan ahead of an effective wrap up so that everyone is on the same page at the end of the meeting.
General guidelines for attending all kinds of meetings (offline and online)
- Show up on time, punctuality is an important lifestyle trait.
- Stay focussed in the meeting both mentally and physically.
- Stay hydrated and eat well before the meeting so that you do not get distracted during the meeting.
- Be solution-focused, this will mark your impression even after the meeting.
- Listen with an open mind, this will help in learning people’s perspectives and accepting new ways of doing things.
- Think before speaking, do not just start blabbering just for the sake of participating in the meeting, also let everyone participate effectively.
- Try to contribute to meeting goals as much as possible.