In any business meeting or one to one, people say goodbye in a conducive manner. The host is usually the one who has an elaborate routine for ending the session and saying farewell. People leave the room before the host wraps up and closes the door.
This is common courtesy and good manners.
Yesterday I attended a Zoom meeting hosted by someone else, which is quite unusual for me. We finished, all waved goodbye, as is the custom. Before I could do anything else, I was hit with a screen message which read:
“Your host has just ended the meeting.”
Bang, it came and caught me out. How rude, I thought, they must have been in a hurry, didn’t want to say goodbye correctly.
And this got me thinking about how to end a hosted Zoom meeting without offending your guests:
- Be the last to end the meeting
- Wait until all your attendees have left the meeting
- Be on hand to say goodbye and maybe answer a question or two with any remaining attendees.
- Stay smiling on camera until everyone has left; last impressions are just as important as first ones.
- Do the newsreader approach. Stay online, look down, shuffle some papers on the desk and wait for people to leave the meeting.
It’s common courtesy, but this ending routine needs to become standard practice as we move to hybrid working and online meetings continue in their popularity.
