Conducting Effective Meetings

Biz Ops

Dec 15

Meetings can be the hero or the crutch of a workforce. Many of us glide from meeting to meeting questioning whether this could have indeed been an email, and yet routine keeps us scheduling them again and again. So much of business has changed over the last few years. Employees are working hybrid or fully remote. Many teams are spread across several time zones. Effectively communicating with your workforce is more of a challenge than it has ever been, and yet many still rely on the same style and schedule of meetings that they adhered to in the past. Our goal with this blog is to give you the tools and resources to restructure your meeting agendas, schedules and expectations to a method that fits your business and your team.

Why Restructure Meetings?

Streamlining your meetings can take several forms. Some chose to restructure and create new agendas for the meetings they already have, some chose to consolidate and cancel meetings to open up free time. Either way, regularly evaluating and adjusting meetings can be a boost to productivity, time management and even employee wellness. Let's look at some of the specific ways that streamlining meetings can impact the workforce.

You’ll save time. According to a survey from Zippia, organizations as a whole spend about 15% of their time on meetings and employees spend an average of 31 hours per month in meetings. Surveys show that 71% of those meetings are considered unproductive after the fact. Multiple surveys* show that meetings are most effective when conducted in 25 minutes or less. These studies show that attention drops from 91% focus during 15 minute meetings to 64% focus on meetings that run longer than 45 minutes.
You’ll save money. According to the same Zippia survey, an estimated $37 billion is lost per year to unproductive meetings.
You’ll add focus. Adjusting your meeting agendas can help add focus to the time your team spends in meetings. Having a singular goal and actionable follow through will help avoid distraction and disengagement.

With all of these pros, you can see that streamlining meetings is the way to go. There are some initial steps to take before jumping in, however. We first need to evaluate the current meeting schedule and system of communication. Consider the following:

How many meetings does your team have a day/week/month?
Does every meeting have a specific goal, or do you have weekly check-ins regardless of the discussion topics at hand?
How many working hours are dedicated to meeting time vs work time on any particular project?
Is your goal to consolidate your team’s meeting schedule, and, if so, what do you anticipate doing with the time you gain back?

How to Conduct Effective Meetings

Ask Your Team

Understanding where you and your team’s time is being spent now will open a clear path of understanding how and where you can make adjustments. This is a great opportunity to utilize employee feedback. Send a pulse survey asking the team what meetings they find absolutely necessary, what meetings they think could be canceled or consolidated and why. This simple step could help you determine your first steps and avoid any misunderstandings. It will also let your team know that you are considering making changes to their schedules. When they are involved in the process from the beginning, there will likely be less questioning and pushback when you roll out the new plan.

Keep in Mind

There will always be factors that you want to review before making any changes to your team’s schedules. Here are a few common factors to take into consideration:

Social time. While it may be the cause of a lot of unproductive meeting time, allowing your employees a dedicated space to socialize cannot be eliminated while you streamline your meetings. Ensure your employees have a time and space dedicated to socializing. For example, the HENSLEE HR team consolidated and canceled several meetings while preparing for the transition to a 4 day work week. We decided the best replacement for social check ins during meeting time was a weekly Zoom time dedicated to non-work related chat. We call this our Tea Time.
Understand your workforce’s communication style. Consolidating and/or eliminating meetings will undoubtedly be an adjustment for your team. Some will thrive in this new streamlined system, but some may find it a challenge. Prepare your team for any upcoming changes and explain the why behind any adjustments. If you have team members who require more face to face explanations, be patient with their transition.
Provide alternate methods of communication. When you shorten a meeting, ensure your team knows what they need to do next and where to go with any questions that arise. This can look like a dedicated IM channel on a given topic, an email thread, or a project management tool where employees can filter their questions.
Utilize the time you get back. Gaining more time for you and your employees is great, but don’t expect everyone to know what to do with it. If you intend on dedicating the time saved on meetings to work time, make that clear to employees. Many companies consolidate their meeting schedule with the goal of reducing hours. If you plan on enforcing an alternate work schedule for your team, this is a great place to start reducing scheduled hours. If this is your goal, we suggest you refer to our 4 Day Work Week blog for more time saving tips and data.

Tips and Tricks

Focus. Make sure each meeting has a purpose and clear goal. If you are struggling to find the purpose of a meeting, you might consider canceling it.
Create an agenda and stick to it. Know what your meeting will entail and estimate how much time each discussion topic will require. If you find that you cannot accomplish the meeting in the provided time, consider splitting it into smaller meetings or restructuring your agenda. If possible, avoid overloading your meetings. Remember that your team’s (and your own) attention span begins to deteriorate the longer a meeting goes on.
Run a timer. This is especially helpful during the first few weeks that you transition into a streamlined meeting schedule. A timer may seem extreme to some, but in practice, you’ll find that dividing time and sticking to it allows equitable time for each discussion topic.
Q & A. Set expectations for employee involvement in meetings. Consider setting aside a block of time for Q & A at the end of the meeting. This is another great place to utilize your timer so everyone gets the same amount of time to speak. As mentioned above, you can also work in alternate methods of communication to continue the conversation, such as Teams, Slack, or email.
Check in with your team regularly. Once you have your new meeting schedule and cadence in effect, don’t let yourself slip into the same routine. As much as your business grows and evolves, so should your meetings. Set an annual, bi-annual or quarterly task of reevaluating your team’s meeting schedules. You can also utilize your greatest resource, your employees, to help you monitor when adjustments need to happen. Include regular pulse surveys about your team’s schedule and meetings.

In Conclusion

Thank you for joining us as we dive into the makeup of an effective meeting. If HENSLEE has a catchphrase, it’s “communication, communication, communication!” and being able to streamline communication and productivity with an effectively run meeting is just about our favorite thing.

Happy organizing and remember to Lead with Heart!