How to make your meetings more efficient

By Clive Dunne MSc. Director, Elk Recruitment

Meetings are a necessary evil in today’s busy working environments. They give the team an opportunity to meet and greet as a group and discuss important topics outside of their day to day roles and responsibilities. However, in order for meetings to be effective they need to be minuted, controlled, systematic and organised.

How many meetings have you attended that are just talking shop and go on for hours? This drives me crazy and they are such a waste of time and money. How many times have you attended meetings that are not minuted? How many meetings have you been too were people don’t bring a copy of the minutes or worse you know that the time hasn’t been taken to even read the minutes or made an effort to action any of their allocated items? How many times have you been at meetings when the start time is just seen as a proposal and not respected as an official start time?

Getting tough

Simply, you need to get tough and take action, explain to the team what is expected of them in relation YOUR meetings going forward. Clearly identify/communicate the roles and responsibilities of each attendee. Communicate in advance the allocated duration of the meeting along with a start and finish time and explain that tardiness is compulsory. Take minutes. Ask people to ensure they close out each item allocated to them on time. Ask them to bring a copy of the minutes with them to the meeting and when discussing items stick to the point and don’t allow digression. This will be a shock to the system at first but after a couple of meetings, and no doubt a couple of conversations with certain individuals your meetings will become more productive and actually more enjoyable for most!

In the initial stages thank people for attending and for being on time, congratulate those who have closed out his or her action items and don’t forget to discuss any other business. Productivity is so important but do try to have some fun and be engaging.