Team meetings are an essential part of any franchise business, as they help everyone share best practices, cover the previous day and raise points everyone needs to know. However, something that can often happen is meeting overrun, which essentially means wasted time and money.
Why Do Meetings Always Run Over?
As the best online courses on the subject show, a major reason why meetings overrun is the need for more organisation. Just winging it and hoping for the best is not the way to go, as a lot of time can be frittered away, with essential matters sometimes not even being raised at all.
It's more common than you might think, too, leading to companies, on average, losing three days and two hours every year. The good news is with the proper prep; it can easily be prevented.
So, How Do You Avoid Meeting Overruns?
No one wants to waste time if it can be helped. You might have some administration courses that you need to get finished early, or your team wants to get on with the delivery that's just arrived. Either way, needlessly wasting time on unimportant matters going to get in the way of that.
Come with us now as we provide five effective ways you can ensure that you only spend the optimal amount of time in meetings.
-
Prepare A Meeting Agenda
A great way to ensure your team meetings stay on track is through the creation of a meeting agenda. It doesn't have to be overly detailed, but it should contain the main points and how long to spend on each topic to ensure that the most important matters are discussed.
This also ensures that everyone understands what's going to be discussed ahead of time, so they can be ready to add value to the conversation. Not only will creating an agenda help to make things run more smoothly, but it will ensure things run at the right pace - meaning no overrun!
-
Have A Meeting Leader
As online learning in team management shows us, leadership matters. That's why your team meetings need a leader, i.e. someone whose responsibility is to manage the meeting and get things moving again if the conversation starts to meander.
The meeting leader can also note the time to hurry things up if they start falling behind. Like it or not, some people will go off-topic from time to time, but with someone guiding proceedings, they can be brought back when needed.
-
Encourage Active Listening
If you are the person leading the meeting, it's vital that you don't let your mind wander and focus on active listening. Particularly when talking about morning meetings at the start of the day, it’s easy for people to zone out, but it should be avoided at all costs.
One way you could help ensure this happens is to schedule your team meeting at a time that allows everyone to get a coffee or tea before its commencement.
-
Stop The Meeting At The Agreed Time
Take in time management, and you’ll soon learn that sticking to any timetable you’ve agreed to is crucial if you want to get things done on time. That means stopping the meeting, even if someone raises their hand to introduce another point.
While you might feel like allowing the person to speak, you need to be strong and perhaps say, “Sorry…the meeting is over. Maybe come back to me in a short while if it's important". This will set a precedent within your team that when the meeting's over, it's over!
Enhance Your Management Skills With An Online Couse With Online Courses Australia
Many aspects of managing a successful franchise need to be mastered but don't worry if you feel your management skills need some work. Thanks to CPD-Endorsed, video-based online education courses like those in our HR Management Skills Bundle, you can develop your abilities at your own pace and at a reasonable cost - particularly as we also provide a selection of flexible payment plans.
The learning we offer is highly engaging and immersive - so there is nothing like traditional text-based courses that can send you to sleep! To get a closer look at what life is like as an OCA student, take a look at our Student Study Demo, which shows you everything you need to know.
If you'd like to know more about us and the training that covers more than 20 different professional industries, visit us today at www.onlinecoursesaustralia.edu.au. There you'll see that every one of our courses comes with 1-to-1 mentoring, so you'll never be stuck for help when you need it.
However, if you'd prefer to speak to us about our online learning before enrolling, just give us a ring on 1300 611 404 or email us at [email protected]. As soon as we receive your inquiry, we'll work hard to get back to you as soon as we can.
