The key to making your meetings more effective and productive

We all know that meetings can be a drain. In nearly any industry, the prospect of a meeting can conjure a lot of complaining and negative feelings. Meetings can also succeed or fail, to a large degree based on how they’re set up and who’s involved. As a temp agency in Stockton CA, we see these types of ideas working out well in any conference room.

Here are some ways to fine-tune your meeting strategy and make sure that your company is benefiting from effective huddle time.

Design Meeting Schedules Well

Nobody wants to sit in a meeting from 1 to 5 in the afternoon. Part of the success of your meetings is going to revolve around how you design the schedule. Think critically about how people perform best. Think about setting a time limit for meetings, and tearing into essential business issues instead of beating around the bush.

You can also think about creative scheduling that builds other kinds of activities into work meetings. Some companies even interject breaks and flex time around meetings to make workflows more effective. The first step is to evaluate what happens during a given day, and really think about how your meetings can complement the things that people are doing already.

Build Meetings for Success

Another element of success involves how you structure your meetings.

In the new and exciting world of machine learning, people talk about complexity and how to model behavior for results. You can take the same approach to a meeting. If it’s too detailed and too long, and it doesn’t have the right structure, it’s going to leave people alienated, worn out and feeling bad but if it is built effectively– if you have the right tools to design meetings that flow well and accomplish their goals, people can come out energized and ready to rumble.

Call On the Right People

When you’re putting meetings together, you have the opportunity to figure out who’s going to say what. This is a small detail — but it’s actually extremely important. If you have low-level people with no experience in a given area going on about something largely irrelevant, that’s not an efficient meeting strategy. You might consider thinking about key people in your company as potential “special guests” when you’re conceptualizing how to run a meeting and fit in mini-lectures, much like the very popular Ted talks that can energize people and engage them.

Take in and Provide Feedback

Almost any business process can benefit from feedback, and meetings are no exception. When you let other people evaluate, and blend that in with your own thoughts, you come away with more actionable results.

About Full Steam Staffing

Full Steam Staffing is a full-service staffing agency in Ontario, California focused on providing clerical and light industrial staffing solutions to manufacturers, distribution centers and other organizations that need qualified, reliable workers. If you are currently looking to hire and grow your workforce, contact our team of skilled recruiters today!