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Remote Meeting Etiquette: Keep Things Professional on Zoom

Over the past year-plus, remote meetings have become not only a necessity in a quarantined work environment but part of a revelation. Zoom, Skype, and even FaceTime have turned into valuable workplace tools for running meetings in lieu of face-to-face contact. As more businesses discover that the remote setup actually works quite well, pandemic or not, teleconferencing seems here to stay. But have the rules of etiquette changed? For the sake of professionalism and continuity, we hope not!

“There’s just no substitute for good manners in all of our daily interactions, and they’re certainly appreciated more than ever in workplace meetings,” says Zoom’s John Montgomery. “Applying those same principles to our video meetings can go a long way toward a productive business environment.”

Zoom has outlined seven remote meeting etiquette tips (click the link in the subheader to read the details on each). We at Allevity wanted to add some observations of our own to not only keep remote meetings focused and professional, but to help maintain the sense of personality and camaraderie that is often vital to our business get-togethers.

7 Tips for Zoom Etiquette (via Zoom)

• Make sure to introduce everyone at the beginning
• Ensure that you have a clean, work-appropriate background
• Look into the camera when talking instead of looking at yourself
• Eliminate distractions and focus on the agenda
• Be aware of your audio and video settings
• Only invite meeting participants who need to be there
• If you’re the host, stick around

But, as many employers know, more goes into meetings than simply an agenda and some professional decorum. For remote employees, it’s often a rare chance to connect and get some face time with colleagues; for managers and employers, it’s an opportunity to connect with their staff that can’t be simulated over email. If your workplace is one that values interpersonal relationships, consider these additional tips:

Allevity’s Tips for Zoom Etiquette

• Respect the agenda and each other’s time: If you’re organizing the meeting, help your attendees stay attentive by providing an agenda, or order of topics to be discussed and letting everyone know what is expected of them in the meeting. If you are speaking and you are open to questions, let that be known when you are ready to answer; likewise, if someone else is speaking, enter your question in written chat, use the “raise hand” function to indicate you have a comment, or wait for the speaker to prompt for questions. Bonus: This greatly reduces the number of “oops, sorry” cutoffs that naturally happen on teleconferences.
• Build in a little time for small talk, if you have it: If you’re a social butterfly, chances are that you enjoy meetings for the chance to mingle. If that’s the case, consider showing up to the meeting a few minutes early (or staying a little after) to chat with your colleagues about topics that fall outside the scheduled discussion. This will help you maintain connections with your co-workers, supervisors, and employees, and without using agreed-upon meeting time to do so. It is beginning to seem like normal etiquette that, with the exception of mic-and-camera-off attendees, early arrivals to remote meetings are signaling a receptiveness to friendly chit-chat. (Just be sure to stay muted/off-camera if you are not ready to accept such conversations.)
• Remember the human: Our employees at home have pets, children, partners, neighbors, and real-world lives. We get a literal window into those worlds every time we Zoom. Accept that distractions will occasionally occur in this environment, and handle them gracefully. Dogs are cute. Kids are fun. Interruptions happen when folks are working 10 feet from their kitchens; assume your colleagues are already anxious about distractions and help relieve that feeling by displaying some understanding. Simply laughing off a Zoom-bombing cat, or assuring a colleague that “family comes first,” works wonders.

We’re Always Learning

A lesson from the technological adaptations of the COVID era has been that those of us who can adapt will thrive, and that includes, of course, how we handle remote meetings. If you have a specific behavioral issue you’ve noticed on Zoom lately, and aren’t sure how to deal with it, give us a call! We’re here to help.

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