Today’s most popular web conference platforms are designed to streamline communications and make it easy for attendees to collaborate. Almost all of them have a pane or sidebar that allows you to gauge who’s in attendance at any given time.
Some platforms send notifications when someone enters or exits the call (although you may need to venture into your applications’ Settings to toggle this option).
For Zoom, consider the resources below:
1. Managing attendees and panelists in a webinar
2. Toggling notifications for attendee behavior
With everything else going on in a call, however, you may not be able to keep close tabs on who’s in the room at all times. If you’re asking yourself, “Why is it important to know who’s in the room?” keep on reading.
1. If You’re the Meeting Organizer
You should already know who’s going to show up since you scheduled the meeting and invited those you want to attend. Every now and then, however, someone you invited might “forward” your meeting invitation to another colleague and … not inform you ahead of time.
So what can you do to not get caught off guard?
Step 1: Verbally welcome attendees as they join the call
As folks begin to trickle in at the start of the meeting, say hello and engage in small talk. Not only will this help set the scene, it will also allow anyone you didn’t invite to announce their arrival, alerting you and everyone else on the call of their presence.
If it’s appropriate to do so, ask how they came to know of the meeting, as this has the potential to provide a few key pieces of information:
a. Motivation for joining (do they have something to share or are they going to be a “fly on the wall”?)
b. Intention to influence (this is especially important if the person joining is a higher-level manager/stakeholder who may take the proceedings of this meeting to make an important decision down the line)
Step 2: Keep your attendee list visible at all times
As the meeting gets underway, keep an active eye on the list of attendees.
If someone joins midway, pause and acknowledge their arrival (when appropriate to do so), and do your best to catch them up on proceedings up to that point.
Step 3: Solicit questions before closing the meeting
This is a general best practice, but one you should pay particular attention to if you have freeloaders hitching a ride on your meeting invite.
If it’s appropriate to do so, call out the individual(s) who joined without having been invited to see if they have thoughts to share or ideas about next steps.
Make sure you capture any key thoughts in an after-email summary that you will send to all attendees.
2. If You’re NOT the Meeting Organizer
Congratulations! The burden of knowing who’s in the meeting isn’t as heavy, but please do take a quick glance at the list of attendees before you unmute your mic.
**Heads Up for This Part**
Regardless of your role in the meeting, the most important reason to remain aware of who’s attending is to avoid sharing something you don’t want everyone to hear. Here are some of my personal favorites:
- Client challenge
- Colleague’s performance issues
- Feedback (especially if it’s constructive or, dare I say, negative)
- Anything pertaining to finances
Your company’s culture undoubtedly influences the openness with which you can communicate sensitive topics. From personal experience, however, even some of the most “open” teams I’ve worked with had topics that were not up for discussion in group settings.
Knowing who’s in the room can help you sidestep these landmines and empower you (and your team) to lead more collaborative and transparent meetings.
