No More Meetings

“We will not be having any more meetings. The conference room will be turned into a “creativity pod” where employees can come to think, explore, nap, daydream or connect to Facebook, Twitter, or other social media networks. BYOL (bring your own laptop.)”

 

I would love to work at that company. As an administrative assistant, a supervisor and director, I suffered through too many meetings that lasted way past their effectiveness. The most frustrating were those that were held as a matter of routine—regular “staff meetings” with made-up agendas or no agenda at all. They became opportunities to posture, set forth personal agendas or to give a pretense that communication was happening. Several factors make the traditional business meeting unnecessary:

 

1. Electronic communications – most anything can be done over email, sharing information quickly, attaching documents that need to be reviewed. There is no reason to call a meeting just to pass out documents that have already been reviewed and finalized.

 

2. Conference calls, video conferencing, GoToMeeting, Skype. Save the expense and hassle of air travel, long drives over crowded interstates, hotel rooms and lost productivity away from the office.

 

3. Intranet and Company websites – disseminating information is easy and user friendly on a well-designed website or intranet. My last year as an HR director I helped to customize our company intranet with the employee handbook, benefit forms, leave forms and other information that we would normally print and hand out to everyone. Not only did we save meeting time, but several forests as well.

 

4. Blackberrys and Smartphones. You don’t need to gather everyone together to get feedback on an issue. Just send out a message and you can get an instant response wherever your employees happen to be. Instead of policies that forbid carrying cell phones, make it mandatory, especially for management level.

 

5. Survey Monkey – Again, save a few trees and accomplish your next employee survey using the Internet. Your employees are online anyway. Use the methods they are comfortable with and you’ll get a better response.

 

6. Web-based training, like GoToWebinar, are available 24/7. Not only your employee handbook, but putting-training programs online removes the dread of sitting in a room with a bunch of co-workers with different needs, attention spans and learning styles for eight hours at a stretch. It also relieves the trainer of having to deal with participants running out of the room to take phone calls, texting under the table, doing work or answering emails on their laptops during class. When employees work on their own time, they can be more focused.

 

Before you call your next meeting, run through the above points and see if you really have to meet in person. When you do get the staff together, use the time to connect, network and strengthen working relationships. If the time isn’t viewed as worthwhile, the staff will use it for anything but what is on the agenda.

 

Mary Nestor-Harper, SPHR, is a consultant, blogger, motivational speaker and freelance writer for Administrativejobs.com. Based in Savannah, GA, her work has appeared in Training magazine, Training & Development magazine, Supervision, BiS Magazine and The Savannah Morning News. When she’s not writing, she enjoys singing Alto II with the Savannah Philharmonic Chorus and helping clients discover what they love and spend their life on it. You can read more of her blogs at administrativejobsblog.com and view additional job postings on Nexxt.