When we think about virtual meetings, managers often think, “They’re just not worth the time and trouble,” so they settle for a conference call or an email blast.  In many cases that mindset is correct: if the meeting won’t be productive, why bother? You should rethink that, though, because there’s a significant return-on-investment (ROI) if virtual meetings are properly planned and led.

Any time we talk about ROI, we need to clearly define our terms. What, exactly, are we investing? Well, in the case of a truly successful web meeting or virtual session, it is both money and social capital. Bear in mind that the platform you use (WebEx, Adobe Connect, Microsoft Lync) has very little statistical impact on these numbers.

Let’s do the math

First, let's start with the basic facts, then plug some numbers into them:

• Study after study reveals that people feel 2/3 of their time in online meetings is wasted.

• The average online meeting lasts a little longer than one hour. ( It's actually about one hour and 15 minutes, but let's keep the math simple and use one hour as our base.)

• This math won't include the cost of the platform itself, or the phone bill. Let’s just consider the human costs—time, sanity, and we won't roll in after-work bar tabs.

Okay, now time for some simple math:

• How many people are on your average meeting?

• Multiple that number by their hourly salary. As a base, $50,000 is about $25 dollars an hour, so let's work with that. Five attendees works out to $125 for an hour meeting, right?

• Not so fast. There is the amount of time you spend preparing for the meeting. Surely that adds at least half that much time, or another $65 or so. Of course, if each person isn't spending at least half an hour preparing for the meeting you may have discovered at least one reason they don't go so well. We're up to $190 or so

• As we know, a bad meeting leads to either rework or another meeting so it's safe to assume that leads to another meeting. Let's call it $400 even.

• If two-thirds of that meeting is wasted, we've flushed about $266 right down the tubes. And that’s just one meeting.

• This doesn’t include the cost of the technology itself, which is wasted if nobody uses it

Now, how many meetings a day do you hold? WebEx alone hosts more than 11 million meetings each day. The numbers should make your head hurt.

Those are just the basic financial costs. Now add in the social costs: teams that are disengaged from their work, deadlines missed or rework caused by lack of good information, and general frustration and grumpiness, which can lead to unproductive behavior, turnover, and terrible team morale.

Tech alone isn’t the answer

Some people will have you believe that the right technology will solve that problem. To a degree, that’s true. Whichever web platform you use should have some basic synchronous features like white boards, chat, screen sharing, and so on. Webcams and breakout rooms are nice tools, as well. But technology alone won’t solve the problem for two reasons.

First, most people don’t use the tools well (or at all). Studies show that 75 percent or more of people use only 25 percent of the features available in webmeeting tools. Additionally, more than 80 percent of meeting leaders have never received any training or coaching in the proper use of the technology before trying it out on live victims. Not a recipe for success, you’ll agree.

Second, if meeting leaders have a perfect understanding of the powerful technology at their disposal, it’s essentially wasted if they don’t have the skills and motivation to do the human things that make all the difference.  Do your teammates participate and add value, or are your webmeetings just a chance to sit on mute and answer email?

Bottom line: Planning and leading meetings are core skills for all managers, team leaders, and anyone working in a remote or virtual environment.  How is your organization helping people develop the core skills they need to get the most from their teams in this new world of work?