I’ve worked in distributed teams at organizations that span cross-country and globally for over eight years. In this world, doing video calls for meetings or events or webinars is the norm. Over the years, I’ve become used to spending most of my days at home on video calls and facilitating online calls for dispersed communities.
In the current world, where many friends and peers are now working out of their homes, I realized this wasn’t a familiar practice for everyone with many people now learning to route their ways around digital connections. Whether it’s doing video calls to stay connected to friends or family, hosting education webinars for your community, or meeting with colleagues — digital connectedness is essential for our livelihoods.
There are a lot of things you learn about working remotely or across timezones but the most underrated is being able to host or participate in inclusive video calls. There are no special skills required but navigating your way around a video conference call takes practice and thoughtfulness. It’s not easy. Digital connection comes with new barriers that make it difficult for people to stay focused, feel less connected or present, and participate.
I’ve been holding onto these tips for running inclusive online meetings for a while and I can’t think of a better time to share them with others. These are just a few of the practices that make for effective and welcoming calls, but there are many more.
1. Assign facilitators and potentially, time keepers or note takers. It’s easy for an online call to go off the rails and for everyone to remain silent when it comes to discussion. A facilitator will make sure you adhere to an agenda and seamlessly work your way through it. If some settings, a time keeper can help manage your time, which can sometimes be harder to track online, and a note taker can collect the discussion visually as a transcript.
2. Do have introductions, welcomes, madlibs. The introduction is an important time to make sure all voices are heard and share who is present. If you have a small group, you can go around on the call and have everyone speak. If you have a bigger group, consider using a shared document or chat where people can write their introductions or madlibs.
3. Have multiple ways for people to communicate. Without the in-person setting it can be harder for people to add their voices to a call or find the right time to jump in. Engage people to participate in the chat or on a shared document. It’s also nice to call out what people are sharing in these spaces and if appropriate, ask them to elaborate in the call.
4. Call in and call out. Have you ever been on a video call where it feels like only a couple people are talking? Same! Make space for others to participate by asking those who have participated a lot to hold back while those who have yet to participate can share. I don’t love name calling though I have found that people have contributions that they are willing to share when invited.
5. Use video whenever possible. The best part of video call is that you can do them from your couch in comfortable clothing. While this is a unique advantage it also makes people more hesitant to join via video over fears of not looking presentable. Enabling video, and not just audio, is critical to engaging participants and feeling more connected. In some cases, you might want to forewarn individuals that they will be asked to turn on their video during the call. Note, bandwidth can be a problem so video is not always possible.
6. Encourage using the mute button. This is a technical one but if you aren’t talking, you should be using the mute button on your video. Being on mute helps to minimize sounds so others can be heard more clearly. Remember to also mute notification settings so those bing noises don’t distract you or other participants.
7. Have prompts or open spaces for discussion. It’s easy to fall into the trap of treating videos calls as lecture spaces. Instead of only holding space at the end for questions, consider having multiple spots that include prompts so others can participate throughout the call. If you have a lot of people or minimal time use shared documents and allow participants some time to silently document responses.
8. Send documents ahead of call. Everyone learns differently. For those that are more visual learners, like myself, it’s helpful to have documents, slides, or agendas ahead of the call so we can review at our own pace and prepare properly. You can add these materials to the meeting invite or send to participates a couple days before the call.
9. Ask permission for photos. When you know the participants it’s easier to feel comfortable taking screenshots and share without permission, but getting into the habit of asking to take photos and if people are comfortable with sharing is good practice. You can also use emojis or other images to cover faces of those who aren’t comfortable or have not received explicit permission for.
10. Be kind and understanding. It’s easy to get frustrated when someone’s video is breaking up or their audio isn’t perfect or you hear noises in the background. In these moments, recognize your privilege, which often can be access to high-speed internet or quiet spaces, and support participants to communicate in other ways that are more accessible to them.
Depending on the number of participants, you can adapt these practices as you see fit. You might even find new practices along the way. Communities are different and will require different practices that you can develop over time, or better yet — co-develop with the community.
Good luck on your online meetings!
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