Office meetings give your team a better understanding of what objectives the office needs to reach, ways to improve and inspiration to continue moving forward. Unfortunately, office meetings often fall short in inspiring your workers to work harder. An efficient office manager will know how to encourage his team to reach the goals and objectives laid out in the meeting. Managers should always strive to find new ways to make office meetings more productive.
Give the meeting structure and you will automatically create more productive atmosphere. Write down an outline of the meeting on a whiteboard so your employees can follow along and know what’s coming next. You can find some great whiteboards online for your office space at places like mywhiteboards.com. Keeping a solid outline will also help employees that want to take notes. They can copy the outline as note headers, and then fill in below with important information.
People constantly checking their electronics is one of the most distracting things during an office meeting. In order to avoid this, make a strict policy against using electronics during a meeting. If someone has an emergency phone call, ask them to exit the meeting. Take a couple of minutes break every 10-15 minutes specifically for employees to check their devices. It doesn’t have to be a long break, just enough time to respond to a couple of texts or an email. Frequent breaks will help them to focus on your meeting and not on who may be trying to get in touch with them.
For longer meetings, consider catering in lunch for everyone. A free, healthy lunch will make employees happy and appreciative of you as a manager. Find a local café that will cater lunch for you. For an more personal touch, pass out menus a few days before the meeting and let employees order what they want. This way they are sure to enjoy the lunch you have provided. When employees feel appreciated and taken care of, they are more likely to go the extra mile for you and your business.
Ultimately, productive meetings start and end with cooperative employees. If you can get your employees on board and excited about your company then you have done more than what most other businesses can. Make things easier, more convenient and more enjoyable and you’re sure to have more productive office meetings week after week. Don’t settle for less when your company deserves the best.
This is a guest post.
