Our Online Meeting Rules:

Communicate topic and agenda.

Good preparation is the best and end-all for an online meeting to succeed. This includes the definition of goals and the creation of an agenda, which is sent to the participants in advance. This way, everyone can prepare for the meeting in peace and contribute something to the topic. A previously defined agenda also serves as a guide during the online discussion and helps to work through issues or individual points in a structured and efficient manner.

Technology check

No sound, or do you need to learn how to share your screen? It’s just stupid that all the participants are already waiting for you. Before you start a virtual meeting, you should ensure that everything works and that you are familiar with the individual functions.

Wear appropriate clothing

This online meeting rule is aimed at the moderator and should be heeded by all participants. Just because the meeting is taking place virtually, for example, on your own four walls, doesn’t mean that you should put on a jogging suit. Wear what you would have worn to a regular meeting and, for a video conference, ensure that you tidy up your work beforehand and that there is good lighting.

Be on time

Plan enough time to dial into the meeting on time – with a few minutes buffer at best. If you are late, it is essential to inform the other meeting participants so that they can use the waiting time elsewhere.

Friendly welcome with a round of introductions

As a moderator, you should ensure a nice intro. Greet all participants, and if there are new employees or external participants, ask them to introduce themselves.

Avoidance of background noise

Keyboard typing, screaming children, and construction work in the background: background noise during an online meeting can be highly annoying. For this reason, only the conference leader and the person who has something to contribute should have the microphone switched on for audio transmission. The rest should mute themselves to avoid distractions. Using a headset that supports noise canceling and hides background noise is also advisable. Close the windows before the meeting, and turn off your cell phone.

Pay attention to pronunciation and gestures.

You should pay particular attention to your pronunciation and pitch when communicating virtually. Speak slowly, calmly, and clearly, taking regular pauses for better understanding. This is particularly important in international companies, where English is used as the language of communication.
Concerning intercultural cooperation, you should also pay attention to your gestures and body language during a web conference because gestures can be understood differently depending on the cultural context. A nod of the head is interpreted as approval in most countries, but not in the Arab countries, Greece or Turkey. With a nod, you express precisely the opposite, i.e., your rejection.

Less is more

Online meetings easily help to simplify collaboration across distances. However, there are also companies where the number of online sessions degenerates, and employees ultimately only spend their day-to-day work swinging from one session to the next. Think carefully about why you are setting up an online appointment and who should take part. Only invite people involved in the topic and can contribute to the discussion.

Keep online meetings short and sweet.

The longer the meeting, the more likely you will lose concentration. To have the full attention of all participants, a maximum duration of max. 60-90 minutes should be set for online meetings.

Let others finish speaking.

Let others finish and try to avoid interruptions. Instead, wait for pauses in the conversation to add something.

Create common protocol

To record the results of a virtual meeting in the long term, it is advisable to draw up a joint protocol. In addition, numerous video conferencing tools have a recording function with which the meeting can be recorded. This allows employees who were unable to attend the online discussion to view and update the meeting.

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Set Up A Dedicated Workspace.

To get started, take the time to think about the different spaces that make up your home. You will determine how you could use them when you are teleworking.
Preferably, opt for a room dedicated solely to your professional activity. It can be an office, a veranda, or even a mezzanine. Ideally, it will have a door to separate private and professional life. So you can work in peace.
If you do not have a separate room for your teleworking, you will need to free up space in your living room or kitchen, for example, to set up your office there.
In any case, opt for a bright and relatively quiet place. Get some storage furniture to clear the space once your work is done. This is essential to achieve effective disconnection when working remotely!

Also Read: Productivity In Teleworking – Is It Possible?

Set Schedules Like At The Office To Disconnect

In telework, adopting an excellent daily organization and setting schedules is essential. Plan when you start your day and shut down your computer for good. The objective will be to stick to it as often as possible!
Also, plan regular breaks to relax, go out for a few minutes of fresh air, play sports, or have lunch with your Ticket Restaurant card. You can order online and for a “click n collect” withdrawal.
Organizing your day and saving time for your hobbies and your family allows you to recharge your batteries and be much more efficient when it is time to get back to it.

Inform His Teams And Colleagues of His Daily Organization.

To disconnect effectively, you must communicate with your team about the organization of your day. Make it clear to them when you’re available and when you’re not. This will limit emails, phone calls, or meeting requests when you are on break or having a good time with your children.
Remember to provide absence messages on your voicemail and for your emails. Eventually, it may be helpful to indicate the coordinates of a replacement in an emergency.
A word of advice: lead by example! Avoid calling one of your collaborators during his days off or his sports session when you were informed beforehand.

Establish Rituals

To better put aside your work and take full advantage of your time with your family, introduce a few simple and practical rituals throughout your day.
For example, put all your tasks on a to-do list instead of thinking about what awaits you tomorrow morning. It is an effective and proven way to evacuate stress and free your mind. You will avoid posting this memo on your refrigerator. Store it in a drawer instead!
Turn off your workstation, put away your files, and close the door to your office with a key. This little ritual is a simple solution to materialize your disconnection and tell your brain it’s time to think about something else. You can now enjoy your leisure time with peace of mind.

Turn Off Your Phone And Computer Outside of Working Hours.

We can never repeat it enough: stop looking at your emails and listening to your voicemails outside your office hours. Instead, take advantage of these moments to disconnect. To avoid temptation, the ideal is to cut off your work phone and close your computer once your work is finished. If that’s not possible, use silent mode on your device. You will be less tempted to return to work each time a message is delivered.

Also Read: Risks Of Teleworking And Excessive Use Of Computers

The post Learn To Disconnect While Teleworking – 5 Tips To Follow. appeared first on Web Updates Daily.

Are you a CEO, and are you considering establishing a flexible work model in your company, but you don’t know how to manage remote work teams? Then you are in the right place. Keep reading, below we give you a series of useful guidelines that you should keep in mind.

Keys To Managing Teams Remotely

• In work teams, communication must always flow, but even more so in remote work, since non-verbal communication is lost. Would you please communicate with your employees and keep them in continuous communication with their colleagues? Tools such as video conferencing, whiteboards, or chat rooms can help you maintain good communication most properly at all times.
• As in any job, colleagues must get to know each other and socialize beyond their work relationships. In these cases, the blended working system may be the best option since you will find a good balance between face-to-face work and teleworking. Organize at least one weekly meeting in which, in addition to sharing aspects of the projects being carried out, other topics are discussed with a more informal nature. This will help build a trusting relationship between the team members themselves, which will make their work more efficient.
• If you want to focus on work and that your employees do not get scattered when they perform tasks, set goals to meet and always assign completion deadlines. Thus, they will keep an eye on what they have to do and be more productive and effective.
• Use project management tools, as they will help your employees organize themselves effectively and allow you to manage what tasks each worker is doing, when, what time they use to do each one and their level of productivity. Thus, you will be able to fully optimize resources, identify team leaders, and synchronize with billing tools, which will save you unnecessary costs. Zoho Projects, TeamBox, or Basecamp are just some of the dozens of project management tools you can use in your day-to-day life.
• The fact of not having a boss physically and for a long time controlling the work can cause, on some occasions, employees to get lost and slow down. So,  choose the person you hire well, thoroughly prepare for the selection process. This way, you will get a good filter to keep only the best ones.

Remote work or blended working can bring you several benefits, such as saving costs, having a better work-life balance, and the possibility of choosing the best professionals, wherever they are.  In addition, if you opt for the blended option, you are in the right place, since thanks to our concept of flexible workspaces, you will be able to have a corporate headquarters for your company, totally personalized and adapted to that face-to-face online rotation.

The post How To Manage Remote Work Teams appeared first on Web Updates Daily.

Understanding the psychological risks of teleworking that can occur is vital to face better and overcome these types of problems. However, psychological problems are not the only problems. Other physical problems can also appear whose solution is simple: using glasses with a blue light filter so that the computer screen does minor damage to our eyes.

How To Avoid The Risks Of Teleworking

However, it is not so easy to overcome these problems, and we have to know how to act accordingly.

Differentiate The Areas Of The House Well

When it comes to teleworking, it is essential to do it in a suitable room, which differs from the rest of the house. Therefore, we have to try to have our own office or home office and that it has nothing to do with the living room, kitchen or any other room where we could be quietly with our laptop. 

This is extremely important and will allow us to disconnect and relax when we need it, preventing the appearance of a good number of problems. For example, suppose we decide to telework in the living room because we have no other place to do it. In that case, we run the risk that concentration will be lower due to many distractions around us, and it will also be more difficult for us to differentiate this area of work from the leisure area.

Appropriate Equipment

Maybe at home, you do not have the appropriate equipment to telework safely; if not, you should try to get it. With this equipment, we mean furniture, for example, a chair. Sitting for many hours at a time teleworking is not the same as spending hours on the couch, no matter how much we are in the same house. 

If we do not have a quality chair, like the one we could have in our work, back pain will knock on the door in a matter of time. In the same way, it is necessary to have a large table or all the equipment required to carry out the activity. But, again, suppose we do not have the appropriate equipment. In that case, we will likely end up overwhelming ourselves over time and suffer episodes of stress that will impact our work performance.

Keep Your Routine

Finally, to avoid psychological problems, it is essential to maintain the routine as much as possible. This means that, even though you work from home, it is necessary to get up earlier, shower, wash, dress, and have to breakfast before starting to work on the computer.

This routine is quite important and will help you feel much more relaxed and focused when teleworking. Lastly, don’t forget that you are not alone. You will be able to telework with your colleagues remotely, so do not underestimate online meetings and the use of all kinds of tools that make it easier for you to keep in touch with them. In this way, you will be able to develop high-quality work.

Also Read: Teleworking – IT Security Put To The Test Of New Information Challenges In The Cloud

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