Joe can’t wait to get his whole team of remote workers together for a midweek conference call.
Unfortunately, Joe’s employees don’t feel the same excitement.
That’s because Joe typically does all of the talking during his meetings, and tends to drone on endlessly. As a result, his employees find the meetings to be nothing more than big chunks of time they will never be able to replace in their 40-hour weeks.
Could this problem be affecting your weekly conference calls or online meetings? Research shows that it very well could be, as U.S. companies waste about $37 billion per year in unnecessary meetings. Furthermore, 39 percent of workers admit they have fallen asleep during a meeting.
Here are some tips that you can use to avoid wasting time during your next conference call or presentation:
Use multimedia: Use online video, pictures, graphics and slides to your advantage at strategic parts of your meeting. Choosing to incorporate multimedia into your meetings can keep everyone focused, and can be great fodder for creative dialogue.
Have different employees lead meeting segments: To keep everyone on their toes, encourage different team members to lead specific sections of a meeting. Instead of talking for 45 minutes, you could have three or four team members speakon various topics.
Break down into small teams: Another way you could keep everyone focused over an online meeting is to break your team down into small collaboration sessions. This will give everyone a chance to talk. At the end of the session, you could have a group leader talk about the group’s consensus on a certain issue.
Always remember: If you’re on the fence about whether a meeting is needed, it may be better to give your workers the extra hour back and save their time for when a discussion is warranted.
