Can we get real for a second? Is there anything more irritating than getting into a steady flow of work to have to stop and shift gears for a meeting?
What about when you’re halfway through hosting the meeting, and you realize what you needed to say didn’t actually require an hour of your staff’s time?
Yes, your staff is smiling and nodding, but you know what’s running through their minds, like a ticker at the bottom of a newscast: This could’ve been an email!
We know everything feels like a level 10 item to communicate. The truth is, there are times where you could type it out in an email to avoid pulling your employees from the tasks that keep your business running.
This especially goes for when you’re working to keep up with post-COVID demand.
Not sure when’s the right time to call off a meeting? No worries. Here are three great opportunities to turn what could be a time-sucking meeting into an emailed update.
1. Product Review and Feedback
I love a good group review as much as the next person but, often it’s a bit unnecessary. While the thought of rounding up all of your sales team to ask their thoughts about how new products are going over with customers might seem productive, it’s not.
In fact, it’s counterproductive to pull them away from their work. And after-work meetings are a no-go, too, as it interferes with your staff’s personal time and can ruin the workplace wellness.
Consider shooting over a company-wide email letting your staff know what kind of feedback you’re looking for.
By doing this you’ll get honest opinions without influence from other staff that comes as a result of groupthink. You can also expect a higher quality response with employees having time to give their complete attention when answering.
2. Company Updates
You want to fill in your employees on what’s going within the company, and that makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is hosting a meeting full of information where dialogue isn’t an option.
For a salon, this might seem like a great idea to host a weekly morning meeting, especially if you want to remind your staff of updated policies. If you plan to make the meeting a monologue, you might be better off wrapping it into an email or even a bulletin in the lounge.
The last thing you want to do is take up time your employees could be using to be hands-on with customers. This is especially true for status updates that have zero follow-up plans.
Every year, 24 billion hours will be wasted in pointless meetings.
3. Meetings on Auto-pilot
If you find yourself having a meeting just because it’s on the bi-weekly schedule, then don’t.
A good rule of thumb is, where there is no objective, goal, outcome or even an agenda, there is no meeting. Don’t call your employees to a meeting with nothing to discuss. Save everyone the time and stress of halting their work.
Cancel the meeting or send the handful of updates in an email. While not every meeting should be axed, they should be thoughtfully considered.
Every time you open your calendar to schedule a meeting, ask yourself if it’s needed. Your staff will more than appreciate you adding time back into their day.
Because the last thing you want is a meeting that goes like this:
@getthryv ENOUGH with the meetings that should have been emails 🙄😫 #fypシ #smallbusiness #howyouthryv #meetings
