Zoom best practice guide

Here are the rules you need to know to make Zoom meetings work.

47% of employees say that meetings are the biggest waste of their time. With many employees spending as much as 60 hours a month in a meeting, it is hard to disagree.

Some meetings really are necessary though, especially in remote teams with fewer opportunities for group discussion.

Virtual meetings offer their own unique challenges, such as ‘Zoom fatigue’, technical mishaps, and call quality issues. But these are all manageable. This post provides a summary of what you need to do to execute Zoom meetings like a pro.

Know the shortcuts

Zoom offers a range of shortcuts to help you manage meetings. Using these is faster than fumbling with the user interface and can keep meetings running smoothly.

Here are a few of the most important shortcuts for Windows and Mac:

Windows

Mute Yourself Alt+A

Mute Everyone (host only) Alt+M

Turn Off Video Alt+V

Start Recording Alt+R

Pause/Resume Recording Alt+P

Start Screen Sharing Alt+Shift+S

Pause/Resume Screen Sharing Alt+T

Mac

Mute Yourself ⌘Cmd+Shift+A

Mute Everyone (host only) ⌘Cmd+Ctrl+M

Turn Off Video ⌘Cmd+Shift+V

Start Recording ⌘Cmd+Shift+R

Pause/Resume Recording ⌘Cmd+Shift+P

Start Screen Sharing ⌘Cmd+Shift+S

Pause/Resume Screen Sharing ⌘Cmd+Shift+T

Get your settings right

Make sure your team’s Zoom settings are calibrated ti avoid disruption and enhance productivity. Here are some key settings to check:

Global Shortcuts

Keyboard shortcuts are not much use if you still have to click back into the Zoom window to use them. This setting makes your shortcuts work when Zoom is not your primary window, letting you control the app while focusing on other tasks. Depending on the other apps you are working in, you may need to change your Zoom shortcuts to avoid a conflict.

To enable global shortcuts, go to Settings > Keyboard Shortcuts and check Enable Global Shortcut for each option.

You can also edit shortcuts from this screen. To do this, click the shortcut you want to change, then hold down the key combination you want to reassign it to.

Display Names

Forgetting the name of a client or lead is always an embarrassing moment. Fortunately, you can set Zoom to always show everyone’s name on their video. This is particularly useful if you use Zoom for lead nurturing and sales calls.

To change this setting, go to Settings > Video and check Always display participant’s name on their videos.

Join Meetings Muted

Joining a meeting can lead to a disruptive burst of audio for other participants, potentially interrupting an important discussion. To avoid this, set Zoom to automatically mute your mic when you join a meeting.

Go to Settings > Audio and check Mute microphone when joining a meeting.

Join Meetings Without Video

It can take a moment or two for your audio and video quality to stabilise after joining a meeting, especially on a poor connection. Setting Zoom to join meetings without starting up your camera reduces the loss in audio quality as well as removing another source of disruption.

Go to Settings > Video and check Turn off my video when joining a meeting.

Zoom fatigue is a thing. Manage it.

Overstimulation distracts our attention and wastes our finite mental energy. That’s why people usually work better in tidy, calm spaces. The same principle applies to virtual meetings.

‘Zoom fatigue’ stems from the massive amount of stimuli we have to process on-screen. To your brain, being on a call with four people is like being in four different meeting rooms at once, each vying for your attention.

Your brain can go into overdrive trying to process each video feed, all while following and contributing to the discussion. It also feels unnatural to sit and stare at each other from such close proximity, as this is not how people interact in real life. This adds to the drain on your mental resources.

So here’s what you can do to minimise Zoom fatigue:

Turn off your own video

According to a recent study by Highfive, when we’re on video we tend to just look at ourselves. 30% of the respondents even said that more than half of their time was spent looking at their own video feed.

This can cause you to engage less with other participants or become self-conscious. The study also shows that 48% of us feel more worried about our appearance on a video call than we are in real life. You wouldn’t want a mirror facing you in a physical meeting room, so why would you want to give a presentation while picking apart a low-quality video of yourself?

Simply right click your own video feed and select Hide Myself To get rid of your video. Everyone else will still see you, but you will be free from the distraction.

Use simple backgrounds

Encourage your team to keep a simple, tidy backdrop to their Zoom calls, removing eye-catching artworks or posters from the camera’s capture area. If this is not possible, agree to turn off your video when you are not speaking to reduce the onscreen stimuli.

Don’t use video for the whole call

Do you really need everyone on camera for the entire duration of your meeting? Video can be a great way to greet everyone and start the meeting but as you get into the discussion, the Zoom call stare-down becomes an unnecessary distraction.

Stick to audio for short or informal meetings

If it’s a meeting within a close-knit team or covering a simple agenda such as handling admin, video won’t add anything to the meeting. Skip the extra complications and distractions with an audio-only call instead.

Audio quality matters

There is no chance of a meeting going smoothly if you cannot be understood clearly. Poor audio quality causes stress and can make the simplest conversations drawn-out and frustrating.

Each team member will need to adjust their Zoom audio settings to stop background noises activating their mic while also ensuring it doesn’t cut them off while speaking. Encourage meeting participants to check their audio before joining the call to avoid the meeting becoming a tech support session.

Joining meetings with your audio and video disabled also helps stop the irritating quality issues that can occur in the first few seconds after connecting. Besides the settings in Zoom, external apps like Krisp can be used to mute background noise, improving your speech clarity.

Use reactions

In a physical meeting, speakers benefit from the visual cues and responses of other attendees. These can boost confidence by providing non-verbal encouragement. This kind of reassurance can be absent in a virtual meeting, especially when none of your listeners have their cameras on.

Using Zoom’s Reactions feature lets other participants give the virtual equivalent of a nod or smile without interrupting the presenter.

Don’t small talk about COVID!

The pandemic is all over the news, the TV, and our daily lives, and it has been for months. Don’t let it dominate your small talk at work. Your team is getting enough COVID news and the topic is not likely to lift team spirits, so try to focus small talk on more positive subjects such as movies, hobbies, or social activities.

Conclusion

Few employees enjoy meetings, and virtual meetings can add some extra challenges and annoyances to deal with. With the right tools and approach however, you can keep your Zoom meetings productive and efficient, letting your remote team spend more of their time where it counts.

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