5 Ways to Conduct an Effective Employee Meeting

Statistics show that companies spend about 15% of their time on meetings, however, 71% of those meetings are considered unproductive. Longer meetings don’t necessarily mean it’s going to be productive. So what’s the best way how to conduct an effective employee meaning?

Keep reading to find out!

What an Effective Meeting Looks Like

An effective meeting is organized, has all the details laid out, and most importantly all the employees are engaging throughout the discussion. Sure, the meeting will have moments where it can be dull, but for the most part, everything is productive, and everyone leaves the meeting room filled with insight and not dread.

5 Ways How to Conduct an Effective Employee Meeting

Let’s face it, sometimes you have the urge of skipping employee meetings because you feel that it’s just going to eat up time. But, avoiding meetings can do a lot of harm to the company than good. Choosing not to attend meetings means that the discussions are not effective and improving their flow to make them more effective will make it more enticing to join them.

Here’s how to conduct an effective employee meeting in five simple ways.

Don’t make it about you

It’s called a meeting and not a monologue or speech, so don’t have everyone’s focus placed on you all throughout the meeting. You can make everyone feel included by celebrating their accomplishments, whether they be big or small. For an effective employee meeting, you need to give everyone the chance to make a contribution to the discussion and let them be heard by everyone else in order to gain some new insights.

Ask for feedback and ideas

Give everyone present at the meeting the chance to participate. You need to make it clear that the meeting encourages everyone to speak up and share some ideas they have that can be useful to the company. Their ideas could be in the form of feedback on a project that’s ongoing or a suggestion about something that the company needs to be doing.

Establish goals at every meeting

Make sure to address every important information so that everything gets discussed and even resolved. It’s important to reach a conclusion at the end of every meeting, so setting some goals will make discussions more organized.

The goals, however, need not be extravagant or complicated, they can be just as simple as hearing everyone else’s input. But if you feel that the meeting needs to be more serious then it’s definitely important to take note of the necessary information that needs to be discussed.

Additionally, having someone make a report about the meeting is incredibly useful. It helps keep track of what was discussed during the meeting and how to plan for the next one. For those who weren’t able to attend, the report can help them keep up with what they missed so that they aren’t left out.

Have a consistent schedule

A surefire way of making meetings more effective is by having a set schedule for them. By having a consistent schedule, it allows employees to prepare more beforehand since they already know when the next meeting is going to take place. Besides, the consistency of the meetings’ schedules will hold the time on everyone’s calendar and this will also build momentum and a sense of accountability for those involved.

Stay on time

Nothing is more draining than a meeting that goes over time. Everyone has other priorities they need to attend to, so ending the staff meeting on time is important. This also shows professionalism and lets others know that you value and respect their time. 

If it feels like the meeting is neverending, one way to keep the meeting from going past the time limit is by asking everyone if they have any other concerns or questions before the meeting comes to an end. By doing this, you’re able to keep discussions brief and everyone gets to address their comments.

Conclusion

By following these strategies in conducting an effective meeting, employees will start to look forward to those discussions instead of dreading them. An effective employee meeting not only benefits the employees themselves but also the company. Take some time to assess how the flow of meetings and see what needs to be improved.

It’s about time to get rid of the stigma that employee meetings are long, boring, and sometimes unproductive.