It isn't surprising or unusual for businesses and corporations to re-evaluate their strategies, business models, and almost every element of their operations, primarily due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The most noteworthy thing, however, is how businesses are utilizing lessons learned to develop and enhance their operations to satisfy client and staff demands.
There is a chance you have stumbled across numerous articles about the common problem of meetings being ineffective and impacting the way you work. Much has been written about addressing the issue: State the plan clearly, hold the meeting with everyone standing up, delegate someone to take your place, and many more.
However, research has discovered that businesses need to implement systematic change to improve since meetings determine how individuals collaborate and fulfill their tasks.
Especially since the global workforce has taken to either the hybrid setup or remote working, today's business leaders need to reimagine what the future looks like for their organization.
The sudden transition to a dispersed or remote working paradigm initially shocked organizations. Still, it can now be seen as a chance to control how staff members embrace and adjust to new communication tools and procedures. Simple actions, like those mentioned below, can impact a situation most without requiring significant changes.
Adopt easy-to-implement strategies to enhance meetings:
Plan meetings for 25 or 50 minutes, starting five to ten minutes later.
On the meeting invitation, clearly state the meeting's goals and schedule.
Review the necessity of ongoing, regular meetings.
Find the meetings that can be replaced by asynchronous work methods, such as email, chat, shared documents, or offline review, and dispute their necessity.
Verizon Business examined the meeting patterns of a 150-person team over a month while tracking the effectiveness of various meeting adjustments. The experimental practices were developed in consultation with the team because creating new behaviors from the inside is crucial rather than merely imposing them. The survey produced the following results, many of them being incredibly positive:
90% of participants claimed that adopting new methods of handling meetings increased their overall effectiveness.
83% of participants claimed that asynchronous methods, including email, online collaboration tools, and shared documents make them feel more at ease.
78% of participants claimed they believe they are not wasting as much time as they once were by attending unscheduled live meetings.
Verizon then identified a four-step process to help identify, implement, and support simple actions that can instill change in the way work gets done
Walk the Talk – gain and secure support from a highly respected leader from the beginning.
Design and Alter from Within – discover best practices from the teams you are trying to improve and understand their pain areas. Put their proposal forward.
Keep It Simple – to promote implementation and assess success, develop and redevelop supporting tools that can help do the job. Ensure your solution architecture and technology are in place for successful hybrid communications initiatives.
Iterate as you do – make feedback delivery a frequent, regular habit to evaluate whether new meeting modes and supporting technologies will be adopted successfully.
While the pandemic may have caused many company decision-makers to change their business practices permanently, it has also created opportunities for new working methods to flourish. Employees can meet less and accomplish more by making simple changes, such as correcting undesirable meeting practices.
