5  Inclusive practice: chairing skills for online meetings

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A composite image of multiple video conference screens arranged side by side. Each section features a central participant surrounded by numerous smaller participant windows, creating a collage effect that represents large-scale virtual meetings.

Now you’ve covered the fundamentals of effective chairing, in this section you will review what you have learned and add further inclusive chairing skills to your practice.

Ensuring inclusive online meetings

Some of the key aspects of chairing an inclusive online meeting are summarised below. Click on the cards below to reveal some ideas – do you have any other ideas?

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The first ‘Ensuring inclusivity’ interactive contains three cards, each representing a different aspect of chairing an inclusive online meeting. Selecting or clicking each card reveals additional text explaining that theme.

  • First card: Access requirements

    Revealed text: Know your participants in advance and find out any access requirements (e.g. live captioning/BSL interpreters/accessibility tools).

  • Second card: Assistive technology

    Revealed text: Let people know what assistive technology is available.

  • Third card: Agenda

    Revealed text: Distribute the agenda and essential documents well before the meeting so people can prepare.

Use your mouse, keyboard, or touch screen to reveal the text on the reverse of the card.

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Three cards are displayed (‘Ensuring inclusivity’ – second set) each representing a different aspect of chairing an inclusive online meeting. Selecting or clicking each card reveals additional text explaining that theme.

  • First card: Introductions

    Revealed text: Start by welcoming and introducing everyone (if they are not known to one another).

  • Second card: Unfamiliar names

    Revealed text: Check you know how to pronounce everyone’s name.

  • Third card: Pronouns

    Revealed text: Check and use correct pronouns – you might like to open the meeting by identifying the pronouns you use.

Use your mouse, keyboard, or touch screen to reveal the text on the reverse of the card.

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Three cards are displayed (‘Ensuring inclusivity’ – third set), each representing a different aspect of chairing an inclusive online meeting. Selecting or clicking each card reveals additional text explaining that theme.

  • First card: Communication expectations

    Revealed text: At the beginning of the meeting, set out the expectations about how people will communicate with one another, i.e. in ways that promote equitable and inclusive engagement.

  • Second card: Camera use

    Revealed text: Encourage camera use but be attentive to personal preferences/needs and keep this optional.

  • Third card: Encouraging participation

    Revealed text: Encourage active participation from attendees (in whatever way is comfortable for them). Go through processes for getting involved, e.g. chat boxes/raised hands etc.

Use your mouse, keyboard, or touch screen to reveal the text on the reverse of the card.

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Three cards are displayed (‘Ensuring inclusivity’ – fourth set), each representing a different aspect of chairing an inclusive online meeting. Selecting or clicking each card reveals additional text explaining that theme.

  • First card: Chat boxes

    Revealed text: Set some norms about chat use, e.g. keep comments brief; use chat to ask questions and share resources.

  • Second card: People who haven’t spoken

    Revealed text: When moving to a new agenda item, invite those who haven’t spoken to speak first. There is evidence that calling women to speak first encourages greater participation from other women.

  • Third card: Dominant speakers

    Revealed text: Manage interactions, including interruptions and dominant speakers (e.g. don’t let people dominate, don’t let people interrupt others).

Use your mouse, keyboard, or touch screen to reveal the text on the reverse of the card.

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One card is displayed (‘Ensuring inclusivity’ – fifth set), representing an aspect of chairing an inclusive online meeting. Selecting or clicking on the card reveals additional text explaining that theme.

  • Card: Discriminatory language

    Revealed text: Use inclusive language and challenge any discriminatory or biased language you hear.

Use your mouse, keyboard, or touch screen to reveal the text on the reverse of the card.

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This is not an exhaustive list of considerations, but hopefully it highlights how many things a chair has to keep in mind before, during and after a meeting.

Now you have thought about inclusivity in online meetings, the next activity looks at all the various factors involved in effective chairing practice and how to chair a productive and inclusive online meeting.

Activity icon Activity 6  Leading the way

Timing: Allow around 20 minutes

Watch Video 2 through once without interruption, then a second time while you make notes.

Download this video clip.Video player: Video 2
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Transcript: Video 2  Leading the way

SAM (chair)
Testing one, two. Testing one, two. Great. OK. Hello, everyone.
ANNA
Hi.
FIONA
Hi.
BRIAN
Hello.
SAM (Chair)
Hi, how's everyone doing?
ALEC
Good. Yeah, I had a lovely, relaxing weekend by the seaside.
ANNA
Sounds amazing, Alec.
ALEC
Yes.
SAM (chair)
Fiona and Tom, you've not got your cameras on. Please turn them on if you can. If you're not able to have your camera on today, Tom, can I please just check that you can hear me. Can you let me know by turning on your microphone or give me a thumbs-up or use the chat box.
TOM
Yes, I'm good and I can hear you, Sam. I'm just not feeling too great today, and I'd rather not have a camera on me if that's OK. I'll be following everything though. And I'll make comments in the chat box if I need to say anything.
SAM (chair)
Sorry, to hear that, Tom. You make sure you look after yourself. If you need to duck out of the meeting, that's fine. Just let us know that you've gone. Actually, that's reminded me, as I am on my own today, can I ask the rest of you not to ask questions in the chat box, as I may not see them as they come up. So if you have a query, please just raise your hand and/or turn your microphone on and ask your question so we can use the chat box for sharing links but just not for asking questions. Great. OK, so is everyone clear about the agenda and has had time to read the slides that I sent round with it?
BRIAN
Yep.
ANNA
Yep.
SAM (chair)
Great. I will share those with you now. Can everyone see those slides? Good. Please let me know if you can't read anything, and I will read those out to you then. Also, if you want to see me and the slides at the same time, you can click the button saying 'Show speaker in a different window.' So in the bottom left of the video window there. So as you can see, there are two points of discussion. The first is salary scales for our employees, and the second is who of the applicants we are going to shortlist for the position of PA.
So I'd really like to hear from everyone as you all have a unique position within the organisation, and it's important that your views are represented, especially in regards to the salary scales. Would anyone like to start?
ALEC
Yes. I'm happy to go first, Sam. Well, I think increasing the salaries has pros and cons. When I worked with another company 15 years or so ago, I was only earning half what the staff here get right now, but I was young, and young people are able to deal with it better, right? And I managed to put money away in the bank, and now look at me. I'm the Head...
SAM (chair)
Thank you for sharing your perspective, Alec, and sorry for the interruption. Please could we maybe add some other voices to this conversation. So who else has an opinion on that? Would you like to share what you think, Anna?
ANNA
Yeah, sure. Well, let's make it short. I would like to pay our employees higher salaries.
[…]
SARA
I disagree. I think we should pay our employees higher salaries to get along with the inflation. They deserve it.
BRIAN
To repeat my point, we do not have enough capital to pay everyone more. We should rather focus on paying those people more who did great jobs.
SAM
Thank you, Brian and everyone, for sharing your experiences on this. All very interesting points. I think I've got an impression now of how everyone feels about this. So let's come back to the agenda. The next item is which of the applicants we are going to invite to interview for the PA post. We really do need to make a decision on this today, as we need a person in place ASAP.
Has everyone had a chance to look at the applications and ranked the applicants according to who they think we should invite to interview?
BRIAN
Yes.
ALEC
Mhm.
SAM (chair)
Great, OK. In that case, can I please ask you to fill out this poll with your rankings, and we will see what we have.
[…]
Oh, interesting. There seem to be two clear favourites. Laura and Finn already. Any comments?
BRIAN
Well, I'm surprised that a man has come up so high. I'm not sure how I feel about having a male PA. Are they going to feel OK doing things like organising meetings and lunches, etc.?
SAM (chair)
That's a bit of an outdated stereotype, Brian. I think we need to be careful not to reproduce stereotypes.
BRIAN
Well, I think Laura's application is much stronger.
SAM (chair)
Maybe I can bring Sara and Alec into this conversation. Sara, what's your take on these two candidates?
SARA
Well, I think that both are really strong. But for me, Finn's application is strongest - he has lots of experience.
ALEC
Rubbish. Sorry, I totally disagree. He's not been in his current position for more than five minutes.
SAM
Hang on a minute, Alec. Sara hadn't finished, so can I just please remind everyone to be polite and respectful of different points of view. We do encourage discussion and debate, but we do that with respect. Sara, you were saying.
SARA
Well, as I was saying, he has lots of experience of working in different settings. He has experience of working across teams, and he seems very flexible, which in our organisation is an important quality. I also think he'd be a real benefit...
SAM
OK, before we finish, is there any other business?
BRIAN
No.
SAM
No?
SAM
No, OK. In that case, let's wrap this up. Thank you, everyone. That was a really enlightening and fruitful discussion. We've managed to collect some ideas that are interesting in relation to the salary scales, and we have agreed to who we are going to invite to interview. That is great.
Let me sum up the action points. I've been taking minutes as we've gone along. I'll upload these to Teams within the next couple of days. I'll also include a summary of our discussion of the salary scales. Please do add any additional comments to that that come to you. This is a working document.
Alec, you said that you could contact the applicants and let them know whether they've reached the next stage or not. Could you do that by the end of this week?
ALEC
Yes.
SAM
Great, thank you. So that is it, I think. Thank you, everyone, and I will see you in the next meeting next week.
BRIAN
Thank you, bye.
SAM
Bye.
SARA
Thanks.
ALEC
Bye-bye.
End transcript: Video 2  Leading the way
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Video 2  Leading the way
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The second time you watch it note down all the examples of effective chairing practice you notice in the box below:

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Answer

Some noticeable effective chairing actions are listed below. Do you agree with them and would you add any others?

The chair:

  • Tests the meeting software and their devices ahead of the meeting.
  • Makes sure that their video setting is up and especially that there is a bright light. This ensures that every participant can see them properly on the screen in case lip-reading is needed.
  • Has sent around a structured agenda ahead of the meeting.
  • Is dressed professionally.
  • Opens the meeting with some short small talk, giving everyone the chance to arrive.
  • Asks people to put their camera on, if possible.
  • Shows empathy.
  • Sets boundaries/rules around the meeting.
  • Politely interrupts Alec when he starts talking too much.
  • Makes sure the debate is going into the right direction.
  • Keeps to time and covers all important points of the meeting.
  • Calms the debate down when necessary.
  • Starts to wrap up the meeting 10 minutes before the announced end.
  • Sums everything up at the end.

4  The importance of inclusive language

Unit 3 conclusion