An Essential Guide To Hosting Fun And Exciting Remote Work Meetings

Today, more and more companies are switching to a remote setup as it’s more cost-efficient and conducive for their team members. While it might help people save on transportation costs and renting a large office space, holding meetings might be more difficult, especially since you can’t see one another face to face. Along with this, staring on the screen for the entire day can make anything feel uninteresting as there’s nothing new or enjoyable to look forward to.  

When you host remote work meetings, while it’s not required, it’s highly encouraged to make them fun and exciting. It’ll help to spice up your employees’ day and allow them to relax a bit. As you look for virtual team happy hour ideas, below are some tips to hosting a fun and exciting remote work meeting: 

Encourage Video Calls 

Most work meetings usually involve only audio calls. While it helps to pass the message effectively, it would be better if you could see one another face to face. Even if you cannot be literally right next to each other, you can make people feel like they’re just a few steps away by encouraging video calls. This way, everyone can see eye to eye and watch everyone’s facial expressions, making things more fun and exciting.   

Begin With A Work Call And End With Fun

Since it will still be a work call, you still need to discuss work matters during the meeting. Admittedly, they can be quite tedious, but it needs to be done. To make this a bit enjoyable, you should begin the call with everything work-related and end the meeting on a fun note. This’ll help to get you all sorted out, as there’s nothing left on the table you need to worry about. Moreover, you can also be in a great mood as you end the call since you’ve just been part of something positive and enriching.

As you begin the meeting by discussing something work-related, try to keep it short and brief as much as possible. Provide all the necessary details and avoid adding irrelevant things to the call. You can even create a slideshow presentation to keep you on track and make the call a bit more dynamic. You can further socialize once the meeting ends and focus on the fun afterward. However, keeping work meetings short doesn’t mean they need to be rushed. Before you move on to the fun part of the call, confirm if everyone’s on the same page and if there are any questions. While it might be exciting to play games, it wouldn’t be a successful meeting if its main objectives were not achieved.

Add Fun Background Music 

After your work call, you can let everyone feel the fun vibe by playing fun background music on your end. You can either play music on your device or through an external speaker. Just ensure that you keep the volume to a minimum so you can allow others to speak and let everyone hear them clearly. However, this might force you to avoid clicking the mute button, as people need to hear your background music.  

Luckily, there are plenty of fun party playlists you can play. You can go with the latest trends and allow everyone to dance to the beat of the music. While this might be an added effort on your end, this’ll surely bring everyone to a fun and party mood. 

Start With An Ice Breaker 

After a serious work call, the meeting deserves an ice breaker. This’ll help to free everyone’s minds from work and slowly shift into a fun and exciting mood. When hosting an ice breaker game, you need to be careful as you need to consider your team’s demographics, age, interests, and personalities. But don’t worry, as there are plenty of ice breaker games suitable for everyone. 

A good example of an ice breaker is the rose/thorn game. During this event, you’ll pass the mic to each individual who will share their ‘rose and thorn’ moments. A rose is something positive that makes them happy and grateful, and a thorn is a challenging experience. Ideally, it should be something not work-related and something recent. 

Set A Theme 

If you’re hosting a meeting that solely focuses on fun and excitement, you might consider setting a theme for the event. Depending on the time of year, it could be a holiday, Halloween, or a beach-themed party. After picking your theme, you can encourage everyone to wear their best costumes that best reflect the theme spirit. You can even ask them to change their backgrounds into something more festive to match the mood.  

Apart from what everyone will wear, it would also be great if you could match the games with the theme. That way, you can make the meeting more exciting. You can also play some tunes in the background.

Play Various Games 

Of course, one of the best and most effective ways to make your meetings fun and exciting is by playing various games. You can have individual games or team games that everyone can join. You can create new teams by department to make the games more challenging and competitive.  

A great way to encourage maximum participation is by offering prizes for each game. It could be something work-related or actual rewards, such as gift checks or company tokens. Moreover, you can never know how long each game will last. With that, it would be great if you could prepare at least three to four games to ensure that you keep everyone occupied.  

Takeaway 

Hosting a fun and exciting remote work meeting can be challenging, especially since you’re momentarily trying to divert your employees’ attention from their individual tasks. But with proper implementation, it should allow everyone to enjoy the moment. As you play some background music and host games, it’ll surely help to brighten up everyone’s mood. So, at the end of the meeting, they can leave the call with a positive vibe.