Are Excessive Meetings Reducing The Productivity?

A company goes through so many ups and downs since the time it comes into existence and there are these managers looking after its functioning and often we find them more dissolved in company meetings rather than the actual working which they should be doing, is it really justified? For me I can surely say, it’s an utter waste of time, money and productivity. In my experiences as a businessmen or may be a worker, where I initially used to work, I have seen, the lesser the meetings, the better the experience and analyzing the key reports of the managers I have noticed that the most productive of all had very few meetings in a year as compared to those who often called meetings. The person who is solely dedicated to his work may don’t want to call a meeting unless its really urgent or important.

More often than not, I have seen the people designated at higher levels love having meetings and most of the times it turns out to be unproductive meetings because the topics discussed are everything under the sun except for the work process. While this is going on, the higher authorities forget to remember, they are wasting the most important resource of their work, i.e., TIME. An important resource of a company to be productive, the non-productive meeting gives you no good and there are hardly any decisions made which were supposed to be taken. Wasting time in unproductive meetings is one of the biggest losses for a corporation as its not fruitful; people ignore the seriousness of the issue, which was actually supposed to be discussed, the employee’s loose morale and confidence in their leaders. Here I bring you a brief breakdown, which will ensure that your further meetings are productive from here on:

1. Culture

   The company culture is all what that matter to the employees who are working in it, as soon as you enter the company doors, how we often come to know the culture looking at its working environment the same culture needs to be implemented in your company too. The type of culture, which prevails in a company, describes how their employees would be interested in their work processes. Setting a good working culture is the most challenging work for any managers, as employees often tend to get de-motivated. They should be told to maintain high respect for their seniors and that comes when they work their leaders and take lessons, a leader himself should value such meetings and make it highly successful to set examples for others.

2. Set the time

   Your meetings should have a decided time, the time when it will start and end, if anything left un-discussed then call upon another follow up meeting and arrange your productive time accordingly. In some firms I have often seen, employees given some punishment for not appearing on time, the best time to set your meetings are the ones in which you find employees gives least productive work. Don’t arrange the meetings while your employees have full strength at the very start of the day, let them utilize their energy in the work they are doing, you can arrange the meetings may be after lunch or during late in the evening.

3. Set your agenda for the meeting

   Calling upon meetings without any agenda in the mind is an utter bullshit and sends wrong signals to the employees, they may start taking their work lightly and will hardly take any meeting seriously. Once you have agenda in place then you can make preparations accordingly like attaining the market reports, analyzing, preparing slide show for them to understand, etc.

4. Productive meeting

   If your meeting is being set up for a productive purpose then make sure you call only those people who are productive and are going to lend a helping hand in your work. A meeting is only called for those who need to be actually contributing for its cause, so if you are not going to contribute, there is no point you attending the meeting.

5. Appoint a leader

   You should be having one person, who is going to in charge of the meeting, a person who will discuss the points with fellow employees. If a meeting goes without a chairperson or a leader, then there is not point in calling the meeting.

6. Attention

   All the employees who are attending the meeting should be warned of putting off their electrical devices, if a person cannot dedicate 100% of his attention to what is being said in the conference, the meeting is going to be highly unproductive.

7. Deliverables

   You have to set your priorities for meeting to be held and accordingly make preparation to deliver the results of the meeting to higher hierarchy of managers, if you cant deliver there is no point in having the meeting at first place.

8. Make use of technological developments happening the entire world around to your benefit. If you want a particular person to attend to your meeting or giving a feedback, make use of video conferencing, if that is not possible the least you could do is arrange for an audio or a video call. If the meeting is called without necessary people attending it, there are going to be no results so make arrangements for the people you need in the meeting through web conferencing or audio.
9. Use company facility for your meetings, it will take less time, efforts and money. Off site preparations are expensive, they consume time, resource and energy, the commute time will take up your productive time. Be disciplined by using the company facility for meetings as they are made to order with necessary facilities pertaining to your process. Don’t go for outside locations, unless it is really necessary because of the space constraints or some serious reasons.

10. Analyses

    After the meeting, make proper analysis of what was discussed and what were the opinions or whether the meeting was really fruitful to the company. If the meeting dint get any good results than try to find what must have gone wrong, check the details of employees who attended, if they gave any suggestions, who all were attentive, etc. this reports will help you to evaluate people in your future meetings.

A company is made up of its biggest resource that is human resource and productivity comes from this resource, arrange your meetings so as to motivate them in right direction by bringing a work based culture in your company with proper discipline and remember if you respect your senior, your juniors are going to respect you!