🎒 Microlesson

🪞 Reflect

Imagine: you’re attending a virtual meeting, and one of the participant’s voices is so faint, you have no idea what they’re saying.

How do you think this attendee’s contributions will be remembered?

💡 Concept

Joining a virtual meeting is easy—just click on the meeting link, the meeting room opens, and you’re ready to go!

Not so fast.

Now that we’re so accustomed to virtual meetings, it’s a little too easy to jump right in before making sure that other people in the virtual room can actually hear us.

Unclear audio in a virtual meeting can lead to

• Frustration, both on the part of people speaking and people listening

• Disregard for the contributions of participants with poor audio

• Time wasted trying to fix someone’s audio or figure out what they are saying

• Inaccurate documentation of the meeting, since neither humans nor automated closed captions can properly generate notes from incomplete or garbled audio

Here are some tips for making sure your audio is as clear as possible:

Equipment. A hardwired external microphone will give you better audio than your computer’s internal mic. Bluetooth microphones like earbuds are great for listening to content but often create problems when participating in meetings, especially if the connection fails or the earbuds run out of battery.

Environment. Choose quiet, distraction-free places that have as little ambient noise as possible. Background noise can be extremely distracting to people trying to listen to what you have to say.

Position. The closer you are to your microphone, the louder you’ll sound. Adjust your settings so that the audio is comfortably loud for your natural working position.

Speech. Speak slowly and clearly into the microphone.

🎬 Take Action

• When you join a meeting, don’t just ask if other people can hear you. Ask others how you might be able to adjust your settings to make the audio more clear.

• Conduct an audio check at the beginning of every meeting, when participants can test and give feedback on audio settings.

• Add closed captions to meetings to capture what is said—but remember that these will be more accurate if your audio is clear!

• Have a backup plan if your audio is unclear. For example, contribute by writing in the chat or adding to any meeting documentation such as virtual whiteboards and minutes.

✅ Check In

🧠 Keep Learning

Learn more about setting up your remote workspace in the Workplaceless Remote Work Certification course.

🎁 Learn with your team!

Refer our weekly microlessons to your team members to learn as a group! Just follow the instructions in the section below to get started.