Three Ways Businesses Can Conquer Unproductive Meetings

Featured article by Rajeev Mishra, Epson

With 11 million meetings taking place in the US everyday, employees are spending an estimated 31 hours of that time unproductively every month – costing corporations $37 billion per year. This goes with the saying that time spent together is not always time spent getting work done. Ineffective meetings not only affect company revenues, but also decrease positive job attitudes and perceptions of the work environment which can lead to more employee turnaround. While professionals consider meetings unproductive, integrating new processes and technology can help employees run effective and engaging meetings. Below are three ways businesses can improve meeting productivity and engagement.

1. Keep it short and sweet

Meetings have a bad rap for running too long. Participants often leave a meeting noting that only 10-15 minutes were actually needed or helpful. According to organizers of TED, a nonprofit devoted to spreading ideas, people start to zone out after just 18 minutes. So from the start it’s important to get right to the point. Good meetings start with an agenda that is viewable for all to see and frame the objective for gathering everyone. This will keep all participants on the same page and provide the meeting leader with a reference point and guide. Some of the most influential meetings have been short. When Sheryl Sandberg was at Yahoo!, she was famous for holding 10-minute meetings due to busy schedules. And if you need more inspiration, Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech was under 18 minutes.

2. Implement large displays

Effective meetings include impactful content that is easy to read and leads to more engagement among attendees. Since the display is such a fundamental part of everyday meetings, participants need to be able to see what is being presented. In a recent Wainhouse Research survey 69% of professionals said they have had issues reading text on a flat screen in a conference room because it was too small. Displays need to be big enough to see, as well as big enough to work with. Meeting rooms and activities going on inside the meeting are changing, and the type of content being used has expanded. A meeting that takes place in a large conference room or boardroom will not be effective if the participants in the back of the room cannot see the information because it is being presented on a flat screen. If you cannot reach your audience visually and engage with them in a productive manner, you are wasting their time and yours.

3. Use interactive, real-time tools

There are many modern day workplace tools to ensure meetings run smoothly. The use of Web and video conferencing is particularly important in today’s geographically dispersed business environments where many meetings consist of team members in remote locations. In the absence of a presentation, seeing the person’s face can ensure better interaction. Meeting participants are also less likely to multitask on video calls versus phone calls. In addition to web and video conferencing, the ability to share and collaborate on content makes for more effective and impactful meetings. Collaborative display technology, such as digital whiteboards, can change the dynamic from one talking head to multiple people engaging and collaborating throughout the meeting. This helps remote participants to follow along, stay engaged and feel like they can actually contribute. A digital whiteboard can also help capture key thoughts and distribute information in real time to participants in the room and those who are working remote. A digital display offers users the freedom to draw, express and engage with participants, integrate content from other devices, and the ability to share the images created directly via email or saving to a shared network. While the right technology can instill collaboration and attentiveness, it shouldn’t be so complicated that you need an engineer to deploy it. It must be easy to use regardless of your technical wherewithal.

Unproductive meetings continue to grow as an issue that affects employee morale, productivity and company revenue. As work from home continues to become more and more accepted in the workplace, embracing the mobile workforce with the right tools and a concise agenda will only help empower teams and simplify management, resulting in better collaboration and productive meetings across your corporation.