Take Your Meetings to the Next Level
How many times have you left a meeting muttering to yourself, “That was a waste of my time?” Even one time is once too many. Unproductive meetings can be taxing on employee morale, and are a literal time-waster. Think that one-hour meeting was a waste of your time? Add up the number of attendees. A 10-person, one hour meeting could have wasted 10 hours of business time!
Get out of your meeting “rut.”
Take your meetings to the next level, and have productive, effective sessions, by following these tips;
- Figure out if it’s really necessary. Seems pretty obvious, doesn’t it? Still, all to frequently, a meeting is called to address issues or questions that could be resolved with an email or memo. Identify the key issues for the meeting, and determine whether they actually require your team to gather in one room for a specified amount of time. Your employees will thank you later.
- Clearly define the start and stop time. No one likes a meeting that drags on endlessly. Identify exactly when your meeting with start and finish. And at the stop time, even if you haven’t covered everything, stop the meeting. Lingering issues or questions can be resolved in a one-on-one meeting, or through email.
- Set an agenda. Once you’ve agreed that the meeting is necessary, set a clear agenda of items to cover in your allotted time. Identify what key issues are really important and essential to the meeting – and stick to them.
- Ensure you are on time. You, and your team, that is. Be punctual, and show up to the meeting on time. If you’re the one calling the meeting, plan on arriving a few minutes early to set up. Don’t make people waiting, and be ready to hit the ground running at your designated start time. It will help your meeting get off to a great start – and stay that way.
- Invite essential personnel only. Maybe you think everyone should want to be in your meeting, but that doesn’t mean everyone wants to be there..or that they even need to be. Before sending out that meeting request, determine who really needs to be there. Not only wil that help keep employees happy, it will help ensure that your agenda is adhered to – essential personnel are much more likely to be invested in your agenda.
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Peoplelink Staffing Solutions works with employers to devise customized workforce strategies for their organizations.
