In today's business world, more and more people are working remotely. In fact, a recent study by Gallup found that 43% of American employees work remotely at least some of the time. While there are many benefits to remote work, one challenge that remote workers and leaders often face is maintaining visibility within their company.
As a business, it is essential to measure your team performance using company analytics in order to make sound decisions about the internal workings of your business. There are a number of different tools and Business Intelligence application that can help you do this, but they can be time consuming and expensive.
One of the most important aspects of running a successful business is creating and maintaining positive company culture. This can be achieved in a number of ways, but some of the most effective methods include providing employees with opportunities for growth and development, offering competitive compensation and benefits packages, and promoting a healthy work-life balance.
In recent years, there has been a growing movement of companies adopting and experimenting with a shorter working week. Supporters of the 4-day week argue that it can lead to increased productivity and creativity, as well as improved work-life balance, even for remote teams.
When you have a meeting, whether it's remote or physical, there are always action Items to be followed up on, meeting notes to be passed on, and next steps to be taken. Failing to follow up with meeting attendees can often lead to key details being forgotten, or missed entirely. Following up a meeting should be done in a timely manner and should include a clear summary of what was discussed, as well as next steps and deadlines.
When it comes to how to run a meeting, whether remote or physical, there are key components that must be considered in order to make sure the meeting is successful. A successful meeting is vital when it comes to achieving goals, making decisions, and increasing productivity, it assures that all participants are aligned.
Meetings are an important part of any organization, yet they can be frustrating, unproductive, and cause attendees to become disengaged if not planned properly. Arguably, meeting planning is the most important stage of any company meeting cycle, if this is done poorly, the meeting itself and overall culture will suffer. We have put together a meeting preparation checklist to help you plan your meetings effectively.
Whether you are running virtual meetings on Zoom, in-person, or over the phone, there are important aspects that need to be considered in order to plan a meeting successfully, these include:
If you're growing a company or leading a team, it's important to have a strong meeting culture. Good meeting culture ensures that everyone is on the same page, communication is clear, and decisions are made efficiently. Unfortunately, not all teams have good meeting culture. In fact, many teams struggle with ineffective meetings that waste time, energy, and even money.
When a company meeting culture is varied, poor, or simply not fit for purpose, it will have a major impact on the business. Poor meeting culture will lead to misalignment, miscommunication, frustration, and even conflict among team members. This will lead to difficulties in making decisions, achieving goals, and completing everyday tasks.
Large corporations address meeting culture by incorporating unconventional methods into their meeting practices. For example, Facebook has a "no meeting" day every Wednesday, which allows employees to have uninterrupted time to work on their projects. Virgin Atlantic Airways holds "walking meetings," where employees take a walk around the block while they discuss business. Other companies encourage standing meetings, which have been shown to improve focus and efficiency.
Not every company gets this right though, for example, Google's meetings are notorious for being "unproductive." The company has even been known to hire outside consultants to help improve the meeting culture.
While these methods may not be practical for every team, it's important to understand that meeting culture is important and impact every aspect of your team.
Over the years we have grown to consider meeting culture consisting of three distinct parts:
Late meetings are a common occurrence in many workplaces. They can have a significant impact on productivity and cost businesses money. Whether it's physical office meetings or video meetings on platforms like zoom, team lateness can be frustrating for everyone involved.
Most businesses are unaware of how much money meeting punctuality is costing them, and those that are aware, are not measuring lateness effectively. There are easy steps that can be taken, and tools (such as Flowtrace), that can be used to measure and improve meeting punctuality.
More than half (56%) of all employees admit failing to attend meetings and other work events on time at least once a week.
Video meetings have surged since the pandemic hit back in 2020, and with good reason. They’re an easy way to hold meetings and communicate with co-workers, clients, and customers without having to leave your home, or now, the office. In particular, Zoom has become one of the most used software platforms for video meetings, and with the introduction of Flowtrace Zoom analytics, teams can now optimise those meetings for efficiency.