Board meetings via teleconference: How to go virtual

You might be wondering how to hold a teleconference board meeting and whether it’s even appropriate to do so.

Can board meetings be held through teleconferencing?

In short, yes, but each business has specific needs and appropriate means of communication.

Participants need to feel comfortable and be on board (excuse the pun!) with the idea of holding meetings remotely. This might require some board members to adapt, but embracing virtual board meetings can add real value and improve productivity. Here’s how to do it right…

Challenges

For decades, board meetings have been a face-to-face affair. The traditional meeting experience is built upon long-held social norms and etiquette. Whilst many organisations are embracing remote working policies and co-working offices (some even provide free beer on tap!), others are slower to adapt to new working cultures and technologies.

As the organiser, make a judgement about the best conferencing platform to use based on how ‘tech-savvy’ your board members are. Sometimes a simple telephone conference is more appropriate than a full-blown video meeting and screen sharing session. Holding a board meeting through teleconferencing certainly doesn’t need to be complicated if simplicity is a priority for your business.

Upping the ante with web conferencing

Some board meetings will require more sophisticated communication tools in order to replicate the interactions board members would usually have in a face-to-face meeting.

If your meeting requires that everyone can see each other via video camera, or you need the ability to present visual content, collaborate, cast votes and more, these can all be supported via ‘web conferencing’ or ‘online meeting’ type software.

Choose the appropriate conferencing solution for your board members, their technical know-how, and the goals of the meeting.

Meeting minutes

Meeting minutes act as a record of what has been discussed and agreed. They are especially important for board meetings due to the number of major decisions often made. In practice, it is best to allocate one meeting participant who is not a board member to take responsibility for the minutes.

Call recording

Most teleconference platforms will allow you to very easily switch on recording for your meeting, which can be particularly helpful as a reference after the meeting, or even as a basis for writing up the meeting minutes after the meeting has taken place.

Motions and voting

Traditionally, decisions are made during board meetings by casting votes (also know as motions). Votes are often cast by voice (with members indicating ‘yes’ or ‘no’ in turn) or by raising a hand or standing. Motions can be called during virtual board meetings too: Each member can be called to announce their vote through their own audio connection, or by using a built-in voting electronic voting feature if this is available (essential for larger meetings).

Document sharing

Teleconferencing often means more document sharing before or during your meeting. Nowadays it’s good practice to avoid sharing your meeting documents as attachments to emails before the meeting takes place, especially if they contain sensitive business information or personal data. Despite its widespread use, email isn’t a very secure way of transferring sensitive information including important board meeting documents. Use a secure file sharing service such as Tresorit, WeTransfer. If this isn’t an option you can encrypt the files you send via email, but this tends to be less user-friendly.

During a teleconference board meeting there are a number of options for sharing and presenting documents:

• Use the document presentation/screen sharing functionality of your teleconference platform;
• Ask board members to have the relevant documents in front of them and talk through them during the meeting;
• Use a separate document sharing/presentation software (Use caution – introducing too many communication platforms/software tools can lead to frustration/friction and reduced productivity).