A worry for many organizations is lack of shareholder engagement during the meeting. A major cause for this could be that the shareholders participating online feel less involved when the company is hosting a hybrid or virtual meeting.
Giving participants the ability to dial in and verbally put their questions to the board is a way in which you can increase parity between physical and online attendees. Giving shareholders attending digitally the ability to speak in the meeting allows them to feel like equal participants, increasing shareholder satisfaction. To do this, you can integrate a virtual microphone into your next AGM, to enable your shareholders to ask their questions within the business of the meeting. A virtual microphone uses a simple telephone connection, in which your participants can use to voice their questions by either pre-recording them or asking live in the meeting.
Due to recent changes in legislation, it can be tricky to know whether your virtual attendees count towards quorum. If you wish for your digital participants to become legal attendees, you must be able to provide equal opportunities for engagement and discussion in a virtual environment, as you would at a face-to-face meeting. As emphasised by the Corporate Governance Institute, “In certain cases, the technology on offer may only permit virtual participants to ask questions through a chat function. This does not equate with the ability to ‘speak’ and ‘be heard’ at a meeting.”
A virtual microphone facilitates a spoken presence, where shareholders can ask questions directly to the meeting, making it an essential element of your shareholder engagement strategy.
What happens during your meeting when integrating a virtual microphone?
- Once the meeting has begun, clear instructions on how to verbally ask questions online will be shown to your attendees.
- An audio question line will become available, where attendees will be prompted to enter their name, number of questions and topic of questions. This allows for the meeting facilitator to inform the Chair of upcoming questions ahead of time.
- The shareholders are placed in a queue and wait for their turn to ask a question.
- The Chair / moderator will read out the shareholder’s name when it’s time to speak, and their microphone will be unmuted.
- Shareholders can either stay on the line to ask another question, or hang up and return to the meeting.
All that your attendees need is a microphone connection on their device - the process of adding live audio to your AGM couldn’t be simpler. For a more detailed demonstration on using a virtual microphone, watch this short video.
At Lumi, we keep simplicity at the core of what we do, and prioritize ease of use for organizers and attendees, allowing for increased engagement within your meetings when using the Lumi platform. Integrating a virtual microphone into your meeting is just as simple. The experienced Lumi team will always be on-hand to handle the logistics and any issues that may arise, whilst you focus on the important elements of your AGM.
