Take it Seriously

I’m sure we’ve all seen several amusing tales of online meeting mishaps, from the Spanish councillor who broadcasted himself taking a shower, to the poor Reddit user whose quirk of talking to his food caused significant embarrassment. Many of these unfortunate events occur because people are not taking these meetings seriously.

Sipping iced mochas while sat at your PC in the comfort of your home can lead you to let your hair down a little too much. You might be at home, but a remote meeting is still work and should be treated as such. Make sure you adopt a professional mindset from the off, close those irrelevant browser tabs and don’t leave the TV on in the background.

If you must leave the session temporarily, be sure to mute your mic, turn off your camera and inform others in the room. Type a message to let people know you need to go AFK for a few minutes. However, unless something is vitally important, try not to leave. Be respectful of other people and the time they’ve set aside for the meeting.

Impressions Count

In a similar vein, it’s essential to ensure that you are making a strong impression. Arriving at an online meeting in a football shirt, with a cocktail in one hand and a burger in the other screams that you don’t care. If you don’t care, why should anybody else?

Nobody expects you to don a suit and tie for a half-hour follow-up session, but smart casual should be a bare minimum. Keep any drinks at the desk to a glass of water or a mug of tea/coffee and leave the snacks for later. Remote meetings might afford you some leeway, but if you wouldn’t do it in-person, you probably shouldn’t be doing it online either.

Additionally, ensure that there are no distractions for others visible behind you. Where possible, find a spot where your camera looks out on a clean portion of the wall. When talking to clients, be mindful of anything in your room that could be offensive or viewed as insensitive if noticed.

Pay Attention

This is an area we’ve written about before, but it’s absolutely vital in online meetings. Too often, people become distracted in a meeting. They might start reading emails or become fixated on something they see out of the window. When this happens, not only does productivity start to drop but others in the meeting can become frustrated.

It can be easy to lose focus during an online meeting, but people will notice. Eliminate distractions in your workplace and give the current speaker your full attention. Take notes as you go, and always remain aware of your body language. The signals you’re sending out will be picked up on by others.

Where possible, look directly into the camera. While it may not always seem intuitive, especially if your video feeds are not in the eye-line of the camera, it will help you pay attention to what is being said. More importantly, it will ensure that the current speaker feels that you’re taking notice. This is especially useful when talking with prospects and clients, and helps bridge gaps and make video conferencing feel more personal.

The post Three Tips for More Successful Online Meetings appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

In coaching, we primarily work face-to-face. It’s a people-oriented profession and working alongside those people has been seen as the best method for embedding new skills and developing talent. Remote consultations, such as over the phone or via Skype, have usually been considered as an extra, rather than the primary delivery method.

Therefore, it is fair to say I was sceptical about transitioning to primarily remote delivery. I had questions about the technology and whether I could adequately recreate the classroom experience. Would people pay as much attention? Would they consider it to have the same value? Would there be technical complications? A lot of concerns rolled around in my head. It has always been vital for me to feel that people are benefitting from the training I’m delivering. Could remote training really replicate the in-person experience?

Having been delivering remote programmes for several months now, I feel more confident to say that it could. There will always be times when in-person training is better. Larger groups or residential weeks cannot be delivered remotely. Teambuilding is best managed in reality, not virtual reality. Sometimes the key to unlocking somebody’s potential needs an unfiltered training experience.

More and more, however, I see the value of remote learning. The feedback from clients has allayed a number of my initial misgivings. The versatility of Break Out Rooms for roleplay and simulations significantly helps to make the remote experience more dynamic, while polls and chat encourage engagement. The technical challenges we’ve faced have been minimal, and mostly due to nothing more than a temporary blip in a delegate’s internet connection. Even these have been easy to overcome, as we can record sessions to view later.

Moving forward, I could see remote training have increasingly practical applications. Bite-sized sessions are not only more environmentally friendly, but they are also more cost-effective for both the client and me. Businesses need no longer set aside whole days for some training sessions when smaller groups could be managed in a more staggered manner. Productivity will only increase as courses need no longer be as intrusive on a delegate’s time. If several delegates are unavailable due to unforeseen circumstances, it’s not as problematic as it is with in-person. We have been able to provide additional follow-up sessions quickly, ensuring nobody is left behind in their training journey.

As I write this, sitting in a room on a hot day, I’m reminded of those times a group of us have sat in an uncomfortable office in the middle of summer. While we might not be able to cool down everybody’s home, there is an additional comfort factor in being able to work with an iced-latte and a nearby desk fan. People always work better and learn more, when they’re comfortable.

Our brand new LMS allows us to create supplemental materials, such as pre-work and post-work, to add even more value by challenging and developing people beyond the sessions themselves. We can even better tailor our post-session development work more to the individual, delivering additional learning materials that take into account a person’s needs and goals. Our LMS allows us to see, at a glance, how our delegates are progressing, where they thrive and where they struggle. We can evaluate an entire group’s understanding of the materials and deliver our findings confidently to business leaders. Combined with our E-Learning Platform, we can offer additional low-cost training courses, on-demand, to our clients ensuring a steady stream of valuable materials to facilitate success.

Although we found ourselves in this position out of necessity, by forcing us to confront the limitations of the way things have always been done means that we can now confidently find new ways to do the same thing. In-person training will always have its place in the coaching world, but I am not ashamed to say that I have transitioned from sceptic to believer over these past few months. I truly believe that, in time, remote training may no longer be delivered out of necessity, but become the default for a lot of programmes.

The post From Sceptic to Believer: Remote Training and the ‘New Normal’ appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.

With that in mind, we wanted to offer a few pieces of advice for anybody currently lacking confidence in their work.

Be Patient With Yourself

If you’re used to working in an office environment and now find yourself at home, it is perfectly natural to feel somewhat out of sorts. Remote working can be a lonely experience if you’re used to a busy office. Transitions can take time to get used to, and even after a couple of months’, you may feel like you’re not at your best. Try not to worry about pushing yourself; just focus on what you can do.

You’re Not Slacking Off if You Take Some Time for Yourself

One of the primary concerns managers tend to have about people working remotely is that they might be slacking off. With the copious temptations of the modern home, it’s easy to imagine somebody bingeing Better Call Saul on Netflix or a dozen funny cat videos on YouTube. While that may be a legitimate concern for some managers, you shouldn’t feel bad if you take a bit of time each day to unwind. If you’re already anxious, stressed or lonely, a chapter of a novel or a quick comedy clip on YouTube might be what you need to re-centre yourself.

Protect Your Work Time

While you should definitely factor in some ‘me’ time, you also need to be protective of the time you have. There is a tendency for others to see someone working from home as not really working. Your family and friends may think you have time for a chat, or household chores, or an online video game; particularly if you are taking five minutes to sip a cappuccino while watching cat videos.

What you need to do is assess what must be done each day, sort tasks in order of priority, and work through them in order of priority. When you are working, you need to minimise distractions. This might mean putting your phone on silent, closing your email client or simply shutting the door to your workspace. Let your family and friends know when you’re going to be busy and unavailable.

Get Comfortable

Not many of us have invested in the expensive chairs you often find in modern offices. We don’t tend to have water coolers, air conditioners or lots of plants. The reason why office managers invest in these things is that comfort improves productivity. If you’re uncomfortable, then those niggling frustrations of sore backs, boredom or heat/cold tend to fester and impact how productive you are.

While it’s unfeasible to spend a small fortune on acquiring all sorts of new equipment for a short-term situation, you can still take steps to make your work environment more comfortable. Try using cushions on otherwise uncomfortable chairs, use slideshow functions to change your desktop wallpaper, listen to music that stimulates your mind and try to think how you can personalise your workspace to make it a pleasure to be at.

Keep in Touch With Colleagues

Make sure your colleagues know how they can reach you, and ensure you know how to reach them. In remote work situations, it often pays to be more forthcoming with communication that you might typically be. Ask yourself what your colleagues and managers might need to know, and make sure that they do. By being proactive about keeping everyone in the loop, you will likely find that others adopt similar policies. Consequently, the remote workspace not only feels less lonely but also more productive.

Make an Effort in the Morning

When you don’t have to try hard, it’s easy to sit at your computer in a dressing gown with personal grooming put off until later. However, if you make a similar effort in the morning to what you would do on a typical work-day, you may find that you put yourself in a more productive frame of mind. You needn’t go so far as to put on a suit, but try not to start the day off too casually. Think about what you want to do today, how you would generally start the day, and dress and groom accordingly. What we do in the morning has a significant impact on our mindset for the whole day, so start the day as you mean to continue.

Ask for Feedback from Leadership

It’s a lot easier to feel comfortable with what we’re doing when we know whether we’re doing it right. Leaders may assume everything is fine if they don’t hear from us, but we may take their silence as a sign, something is wrong. Instead of wondering, or panicking, reach out to your leader and ask. You’ll either receive some good advice on how to improve your performance, or you’ll gain the confidence to know that you’re doing well. Either is a good thing.

The post Improving Productivity and Morale while Working Remotely appeared first on Robin Lines Associates.