The art of making meetings valuable

Some shocking statistics have been published of late which have uncovered the truth about workplace meetings. So in an attempt to alleviate your organisation becoming a part of these statistics, we have written the art of making meetings valuable.

Revolutionary research conducted by the electrical retailer Sharp has found that 1 in 8 UK workers have admitted to falling asleep during a meeting and 44% have even witnessed another employee committing this workplace crime.

It was also found that the UK spends approximately 40 million working hours per week on meetings, with a staggering 7.5 million of those deemed as a ‘waste of time’ by employees. Further to this, the most common reasons for this loss of enthusiasm are cited as lack of stimulation due to not being allowed to give input (21%), and the sheer length of the meeting (61%).

We at Honeydew have devised our own engagement plan for meetings to ensure that as little time is wasted as possible. Here’s how we do it:

-Firstly, it’s important to have a clear content plan for the meeting. Whoever calls the meeting should define this in the invite. Never have meetings for the sake of it.

– Based on the content plan, only those relevant to these topics should be present. If your meeting is varied in content, it should be clear that once an employee has sat through all relevant topics for them, they are free to leave.

– You must set goals for the meeting. For example, do not hold a meeting simply to ask your employees to prepare facts for the ACTUAL meeting. This can be decided upon and delegated when defining your content plan.

-The meeting itself should also include further goals and actions. Unless the meeting is purely informative, talking about further actions ensure that employees remain engaged and active throughout.

– Stick to the topic! It takes time to learn how to be concise and identify when you are going too far afield with your conversations, but it’s possible. Stick to talking about topics you know will be constructive in this particular meeting and anything else can be arranged for another time as a further action point.

– Set a time limit. It’s important to show that you value your employee’s time outside of these meetings so setting a time limit and sticking to it will urge you to be concise.

– Lastly, be engaging! Boring your employees is sometimes part and parcel of the work place but if your employees are falling asleep, you should mix up the presentation styles. Ask employees their input, allow for questions and pay attention to your employees. If someone is looking as though they have something to say but are struggling to interrupt, ask them their thoughts.

We hope that this advice helps you as much as it helps us!

To read the full research by Sharp, click here