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  Butlers Point of Sale Logistics: Are your meetings wasting minutes?

  22 Mar 2016 by Johan / No Comments

  In the corporate environment meetings can consume up to 50% of the average working day and because of mismanagement, research shows that more than half of this time is wasted. Putting things into perspective – we lose about a quarter of our working day which we can’t afford. A study conducted by software company Atlassian calculated a monthly loss of 31 hours a month due to meandering and pointless meetings. 42% of employees blame meetings for a drop in productivity.

  Our economy is changing rapidly, we no longer have the luxury to waste time, and we need to change our approach to increase productivity.How to we improve meeting efficiencies

  1. Should this be an email or meeting? 
  2. If you can’t think of 5 good reasons whether or not to have a meeting, chances are you don’t need one. If the matter isn’t urgent or as important, the same message you need to get across will still have impact if it’s sent as a mail, on WhatsApp or even a quick conference call. This is effective for employees who are out of the office or under time pressure who still need to be in the loop but have work to attend to. It’s also very important to only include the necessary individuals in meetings – if they are not actively or directly involved, instant messaging will save them time.
  3. What’s the game plan?Meetings need to have a clear objective and be goal-orientated. Physically writing what you want to achieve in the meeting will allow you not to deviate from the matter at hand. It’s important to create an itinerary stating what is expected of all the key players in the meeting beforehand so they can be prepared and not waste time.
  4. Time is money: Start and end at the time specified, it’s the only way to keep focus and create a matter of urgency in the meeting. This will help employees express concerns more concisely. Don’t allow latecomers, they cause distraction and hold up the team.
  5. Keep committed: Don’t allow walk-ins from other functions in the business unless they are needed in your meeting. Don’t answer calls, don’t read texts, don’t check your emails, and don’t have private conversations. Be considerate of those around you and focus on the meeting.
  6. Work smart: Cover the most important matters of the meeting first, so for whatever reason you run out of time, the more pressing information would have been covered.
  7. Meeting moderator: In every meeting the leader needs to keep track of time and direct the meeting where it needs to go.
  8. Who’s doing what when?: After making a decision, allocate the activity to the person who needs to complete it and give that person a deadline.
  9. Meeting motivation: The leader of the meeting should encourage feedback and input from everyone in the meeting. Being unprepared wastes the team’s time and can derail a meeting. Motivating and encouraging employees changes the landscape of the meeting to a more co-operative one.
  10. State problem but focus on solutions: Spend less time discussing problems and arguing and more time focusing on various solutions that could take place.
  11. Minutes matterKeep accurate records of your notes generated in meetings, it’s vital to dispatch this information within 24 hours of the meeting. This helps employees with planning and organization and increases the likelihood of tasks getting completed.

  Meetings are still necessary in today’s working world as they are cemented in our corporate culture, but we need to double our planning, sharpen our time management and focus on improving communication and the way in which collaboration takes place.

  Kind Regards,

  The Butlers Point of Sale Logistics Research & Development Team

  

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