Annual General Meetings have always been a crucial part of the organizational structure of businesses across the globe. Traditionally conducted physically, AGMs entered the virtual sphere when the pandemic took over the entire world. With no choice left, organizations started to host them over virtual platforms facilitated by the internet.
Owing to the advantages they come with, virtual AGMs became an integral part of the organizations and their structure since then.
Here in this blog, we will take you through some tips as suggested by the experts that can make a considerable difference in the execution of your virtual annual meets.
What is a Virtual AGM?
Annual General Meetings are the yearly meet-ups organized in an organization with an intent to analyze and discuss the company’s performance, for the upcoming and the passing year. An AGM is attended by everyone who’s a part of the organization, from the management to investors, shareholders, and employees. AGMs are hosted in all organizations, be it public or private.
Like other events and meetings, AGMs were also hosted physically until the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
The pandemic compelled the event industry to have a new way of conducting meet-ups and gatherings. It was then we were introduced to virtual AGMs. They are web equivalents and are hosted over virtual AGM platforms. Apart from the medium of hosting, virtual AGMs and Web AGMs are not different from each other.
The primary reasons for conducting AGMs are:
- Evaluate Company’s performance.
- Plan out strategies for the upcoming year.
- Discussing reports.
- Analyze employees’ performance.
- Appoint a new board of directors.
Tips to Make Virtual AGMs More Effective:
Select the Date for Your Virtual Meeting Carefully: The first thing that you need to assure is the date you pick for your virtual AGM meets the requirements and functionality across several time zones. Scheduling your virtual meeting gets challenging when your organization works across multiple time zones. Keep the convenience and schedules of your overseas employees in mind while planning your meeting. To make it easier, you can refer to some world clock apps to help you understand several time zone differences. Apart from that, you would want to make sure that the date you have picked doesn’t affect the personal schedule of your employees and shareholders.
Have a List of the Attendees Ready: Having a list of all the names who are going to be present in the meeting will make things a lot easier for you. The meeting host can read out those names during the meeting to ensure that everyone is present in the meeting. It will help you avoid chaos and the meeting a smooth sail.
Don’t Compromise With the Virtual AGM Platform: The next and probably the most crucial tip you need to follow for your meeting is selecting a suitable virtual meeting platform. Generally, organizers compromise with the quality of the platform for the sake of a few bucks. What they don’t realize is that it can affect the success of your meeting. Hence, experts suggest that while you look for a meeting platform, compare a few names and then land on one. To make it an immersive experience for the attendees, you can get your hands on a 3D Virtual Event Platform.
Share Guidelines With the Attendees: While it's easier to maintain discipline in a physical meeting, assuring the same in the case of online meetings gets a bit challenging. As an organizer, you can easily keep an arm’s length to chaotic situations by setting a guideline and sharing it with the attendees beforehand. Attach a file of guidelines along with the meeting invites. However, while doing so, make sure you also include the following points-
- Clear instructions about the conduct in the meeting.
- Role of the members present.
- Agenda of the meeting
- Date and time of the meeting as per different time zones.
- Itinerary
- Contact information of the HR, Team Managers, and IT department representatives.
- List of all the members who will be present at the meeting.
- Additional resources.
Include Audience Engagement Activities: Though the majority of the audience prefers virtual meetings over physical ones, there’s still a portion that prefers the age-old format. Why? They feel virtual meetings are not engaging enough. While it is easier to keep the attendees hooked to the meeting in physical meetings, doing the same is challenging in online meetings. Well, it is partially incorrect.
Holding on to the attendees’ attention is as easy as in virtual meetings; all you need to do is include audience engagement activities. Some of the options are:
- Host Q&A sessions.
- Include Live voting.
- Have virtual breakout sessions.
- Host ice-breaking sessions and activities.
Make Sure the Internet is Working Fine: To ensure smooth and seamless conduct of your virtual meetings, maintain the stability of your internet connection. You can switch to a LAN for your internet’s stability. Poor internet connection will affect the streaming of your meeting and create disturbance.
Keep Reminding the Attendees: Though it doesn’t happen often that the employees and shareholders forget about the AGMs, we would still advise you to drop reminders to all the people expecting to show up in the meeting. Drop-in reminders on your social media channels. The idea is to keep the excitement alive among the attendees, which you can do with the help of reminders.
Keep the Meetings Succinct: While some might believe it to be unreal, the term ‘Zoom Fatigue’ holds real meaning. Hence, you should stick to your script and keep the sessions as short as you can. It will keep the productivity and effectiveness of the meeting intact.
Host a Tech Run-Through: No matter how pro you have got at organizing virtual meet-ups, it is still advisable to host a practice session before the meeting. Not only will it help you go through the technicalities of the Virtual AGM Platform, but it will also help make required adjustments in due time.
Keep Your Backup Plan Ready: Always, always keep a backup plan ready. It will help save your meeting in case things go wrong.
We hope this blog has helped you understand AGMs more clearly and the ways to make your AGM an unforgettable and amazing experience.
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