3 Tips to Make Your Next Employee Meeting Meaningful and Memorable

Employee meetings are an important part of the work culture you want to promote in your company. This is why organizing motivating staff meetings is essential.

These days, face-to-face meetings might be a bit difficult to manoeuvre, but you can practice the below principles in video calls and daily communications as well. Here are three tips to make your next employee meeting meaningful and memorable.

It’s not just about demonstrating what you know, but also about learning something new, and listening to your employees can help you with this.

#1 Talk Less, Listen More

Talking less and listening more might be something you have heard a million times before, but it is a tactic that really works not only in a business environment but also on the day-to-day level.

This makes the “talk less, listen more” practice one of the key elements of effective staff meetings. Here are just some reasons why you need to start using it:

• Employees Open Up: Nothing encourages employees to open up better than a leader who is willing to listen to them instead of constantly talking themselves. You want your staff meeting to be a welcoming environment where everyone feels comfortable speaking up about any and all issues.
• Employees Get Recognized: In such a good environment, employees are also more likely to feel that they get the recognition they deserve. They want to see that they are valued and that their opinions are heard. You need to show them that they are important and you know that you need them as much as they need you.
• Leaders Understand Better: When leaders hear all the sides of the matter, they can understand the current situation much better. If you start listening to what your employees have to say, you will realize that there are some things that you might have never thought of before they came up in the discussion.
• Leaders Learn More: It’s not just about demonstrating what you know, but also about learning something new, and listening to your employees can help you with this. With more understanding and such a learning environment, communication between you and your team will also improve significantly.
• More Objectivity: When there are many opinions on a certain matter and many ideas are thrown about, there is more chance that your final decision will be more objective. Not only will you be able to consider all the sides and hear all the voices, but you will also remain the person who makes the final choice.
• Faster Results: Lastly, with all of the points above taken into account, you and your team will definitely see results much faster. Your decision will be objective, but because the brainstorming of ideas will go faster thanks to your team, this decision will be achieved in a shorter period of time.

#2 Value Their Opinions

To elaborate on some of the previous points, it is crucial that you listen to the opinions of your employees. Of course, you could use writers from a writing service like Online Writers Rating to create a survey for you to pass around at any other time and collect feedback from your workers, but such surveys are not always effective. What is, indeed, efficient are the staff meetings you hold.

Here are some tips on how to properly listen to employee opinions:

• Don’t Judge: It is never pleasant being judged — and it doesn’t matter if this happens in a casual or a work environment. It is bad enough when you are the one being judged, but sometimes we don’t realize when we start doing it towards other people. You should stop judging your employees whenever they speak up in your meetings and start considering even those ideas that seem bad at first glance.
• Find Opportunities: Every employee — just like yourself — is looking for new opportunities. Many people want to advance their careers in some way or simply want to improve what they are already doing at their job. This is why it is always a good idea to look for opportunities within the project you are currently working at and try to provide your employees with these opportunities.
• Stop Waiting for Permission: This mostly applies to your employees rather than you as the leader, but some executives and managers might find this advice valuable too. You will notice that some people don’t speak up on meetings because they constantly feel that they shouldn’t at that particular moment. If this is the case with you, you should stop waiting for permission and just go ahead and say what you want to say.

You should stop judging your employees whenever they speak up in your meetings and start considering even those ideas that seem bad at first glance.

#3 Focus on What Matters

Last but not least, you need to stop caring about what is wrong and start focusing on what matters. Some leaders become too engaged in side projects or taken with small issues that aren’t very essential for the bigger picture. You need to find that line between what is important and what isn’t — and focus on the things you can change and that will have the highest positive impact.

• Improve Performance: Try to improve the overall performance of your company (especially if it is a small business and has a small team), but also focus on the performance of your staff meetings.
• Avoid Errors: It is much easier said than done, but finding ways to avoid errors is a good start to get rid of them almost completely. Automize manual tasks, educate your employees, and so on.
• Categorize Tasks: Categorizing tasks into important (or urgent) and not important, will help you optimize your working plan in a way that will prioritize the urgent tasks.
• Set Priorities: Lastly, setting priorities, goals, or even just a single aim, will motivate and inspire your team to work towards them.

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Setting priorities, goals, or even just a single aim, will motivate and inspire your team to work towards them.

Final Thoughts

All in all, following these staff meeting best practices will make your employee meetings more memorable and meaningful. If you want to have effective staff meetings in your company, make sure to adopt these tactics in your own strategy.

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About the author

Frank Hamilton has been working as an editor at review service Online Writers Rating. He is a professional writing expert in such topics as blogging, digital marketing and self-education. He also loves traveling and speaks Spanish, French, German and English.