Remote Meeting

15 Austin South Asian | June 2021 How To Run A Remote Meeting

With many offices continuing to function remotely or hybrid style, video conferencing will remain a mainstay of the American workforce for the foreseeable future. Here’s how to ensure your meetings stay professional and productive:

Be Mindful of Limitations

Miscommunication can occur during an in-person meeting, however, there is a larger margin for error in a video call. Be mindful of the limitations of remote meetings and encourage participants to address who they are speaking to by name to avoid confusion.

Consider assigning a moderator to help prevent interruptions, as well as someone to take minutes. This can ensure key takeaways are understood by all, particularly if tasks are assigned during the call. While video calls do have their limitations, they also have a number of key benefits too. Features like screensharing make it easy to

Embrace its Benefits share presentations, data and analysis. Meetings can be also recorded for future reference or shared with colleagues who were unable to attend.

And, while the mute/unmute button should never be abused, having this feature does give moderators the ability to make it clear who has the floor at any given time so that meetings stay structured.

Employ New Tech

The right technology can help ensure your staff is not overwhelmed with calls and video conferences. For example, Motiv, a mobile dashboard powered by Eturi that tracks productivity metrics for team leaders, now has a new Google Meets feature offering deeper insights specifically into meetings and calls. Is the time allocated for reoccurring meeting being used effectively or can it be optimized?

Are the right team members using ad hoc meetings to brainstorm and collaborate? Who is meeting with who, when? Using this feature, CEOs, managers and team leaders can have these questions answered so they can make informed decisions. To learn more, visit motivapp.com.

Your team may be decentralized, but collaboration is just as important as ever. With the right habits and tools, you can run more effective meetings, and work productively together from afar. (StatePoint)

Meeting The Needs Of U.S. Troops During COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a particularly heavy toll on U.S. service members, according to advocates.

“Even without a global pandemic, troops face separation, isolation and unique hardships and risks associated with their military service.

As a result of the pandemic, many of these challenges have only intensified,” says Christopher Plamp, senior vice president for Operations, Programs and Entertainment for the United Service Organizations (USO).

Over the past year, the USO, a nonprofit charitable corporation chartered by Congress, met the rapidly changing needs of service members by developing and deploying alternative support to frontline troops around the world.

Thousands of virtual and distance programming events have reached over 2.5 million participants so far.

Here are a few ways these efforts are making the lives of military members and their families easier during the COVID-19 crisis: scavenger hunts, story time for

families, networking for military spouses and career help for those transitioning to civilian life all going online. • Already far from home, quaran-

tined service members are also isolated from their fellow service members on base.

To help keep them entertained and connected to their families, home and country, the USO provides Care Packages and USO2GO electronic kits that include TVs, gaming systems, and more to over one million service members and families as they have been in quarantine. National Guard Bureau to provide food, beverages, and hygiene items to guardsmen as well as a place to relax after long shifts. USO teams have also aided US Navy hospital ships, such as the USNS Mercy and

USNS Comfort.

While military medical teams are stepping in to help care for COVID-19 patients, the USO provides supplies and amenities like toiletry kits, comfort foods and gym equipment as a tangible way of supporting the U.S. Armed Forces.

• Open COVID-19-compliant, USO Centers on military installations provide to-go snacks, movies and youth activities to service members and military families to enjoy in the safety of their own homes.

Because the USO is not a government agency, it relies on individual supporters to fund its programming.

To learn more about the USO’s response to COVID-19 or to make a donation, visit secure.uso.org.

“For 80 years, the USO has been by the side of our military, from peaceful times to heightened conflicts,” says Plamp.

“We are proud to provide impactful programming just where it is needed most while taking precautions to keep our volunteers, staff and the military community we support safe and healthy.” (StatePoint)

The USO Military Virtual Programming (MVP) series offers a wide variety of positive, uplifting programming, music, and gaming initiatives.

These programs serve not only as a reprieve from the stress of daily life but are also a chance to connect with celebrity guests and other members of the global military community. • Mobile USO units deployed across the country to COVID-19 hotspots work closely with the