Working remotely entails a fair share of challenges, including conferencing. In person, your voice and body language easily convey your message to your peers. However, videoconferencing makes it challenging to convey the same energy, and technical difficulties can cause your employees to disengage during meetings. Here are a couple tricks to ensure your virtual morning meetings go off without a hitch.

Outline and focus on a call schedule.

Getting distracted by cell phones and multitasking are common occurrences during calls. Having an agenda and goals for a meeting keeps everyone actively listening and engaged in the conversation. It’s crucial to ask team members about their opinion on the discussion topic so they’re focused, even if the subject doesn’t directly relate to them.

Double-check your tech.

Chat rooms that glitch or presentations that won’t load cause virtual meetings to drag on. When this happens, employees can lose focus and start multitasking or checking their phones. A simple dry run of your presentation and all your technology goes a long way in keeping your team active in the conversation.

These are just some of the tricks to keep in mind before your next company call. Our AFEUSA members are mastering these calls to ensure their companies are on the same page. If you need any help, reach out to your community of entrepreneurs for ideas. AFEUSA members have access to an online network of fellow small-business owners, which helps make working from home work for them.