Meetings are necessary for homeowners associations as they provide an opportunity for the board and residents can discuss and resolve situations. Traditionally, they’re held in person, however, since the beginning of the pandemic, virtual HOA meetings have become increasingly popular.

Increased Participation

Residents often miss community-wide meetings because they’re busy with their lives and day-to-day activities. So if you organize a meeting on Wednesday night, one resident will be away, another will be busy with after-work activities and a third will be ill. 

During lockdown, everything was on hold, this made virtual meetings more of a necessity. Since lockdown has ended, having hybrid meetings, where people can choose whether to participate in-person or online has become popular. They’re very useful, as residents have a choice and help to increase participation.

Choosing a good online system results in more autonomy and practicality in your community. It can help residents and board members to participate and vote in meetings on their phones and removes the need for an in-person meeting. So as well as helping decision-making to become faster and more efficient it can help with social isolation.

Record Virtual HOA Meetings

Even if residents or board members have to miss a meeting you can record it. That means that they can find out what happened if they want. This can also help in later discussions of who said what. Not only will you have the meeting minutes, but also the full recorded meeting to consult. This helps to reduce discussions that go around in circles every single meeting.

Not all online meetings should be recorded, an executive HOA meeting shouldn’t be recorded, as the topics that are discussed are normally sensitive. However, recordings are useful for general meetings, though you should consult your attorney before recording a meeting.

Stay Focused

A big reason that residents don’t come to meetings is that meetings don’t stick to the agenda, and they go off on tangents. Problems that could be resolved quickly end up taking hours and this can lead to residents deciding not to attend community-wide meetings. 

If the meeting is online then it becomes more productive, objective, and focused. You answer questions through votes that residents answer in a click, discussions are shorter and the whole meeting is quicker. With the right software, you can also attach the meeting agenda so everyone has it in front of them.

Save Time and Money

When you switch to virtual HOA meetings then you don’t need to rent chairs to fit everyone into the meeting room or provide snacks to tempt residents to come. You save time in starting and ending the meeting, as well as cutting down the discussion time.

If your meeting is online you don’t have to spend so much time waiting for latecomers or repeating what’s been said. Having a meeting agenda available in your video conference software allows residents to easily access the summary of topics being discussed. 

Increase Engagement

Even though virtual meetings do often go faster because you cut out extra chat and discussion, you do need to make sure that you give people enough time for people to participate. Since there can be a short lag you should leave a few seconds for people to hear the question, think, and reply. Residents and fellow board members should still feel included and important.

Set aside time in your meeting agenda for HOA members to get involved, ask questions, and voice their opinions.

Wrapping Up Virtual HOA Meetings

Holding virtual HOA meetings provides more flexibility for residents to join so that meeting participation and engagement increase. It saves the board time and money and allows them to record meetings.

Using Neigbrs by Vinteum, you can use our online meetings tool, so that you don’t have to pay for meeting software and management software. You can have an all-in-one HOA communication tool, that allows you to improve transparency, engagement, communication, and management. Set up your free demo and discover how Neigbrs by Vinteum can save you time and money.