Many of the staff that I interview when working with our clients express frustrations all centered around meetings. Meetings take more non-billable time than any other activity in our Industry.  I have clients that the employees spend more time during the day in meetings and then work outside the standard business hours to get their actual work done.

While this is not good for the bottom line since you are paying all of these people to sit in meetings all day, it is also bad for moral.  Good management of your team means helping them balance their personal and professional life – not making all of their life your profession.

Here are 8 pointers for helping you control the amount of time that your staff spends in meetings and will save you employee time that you may not be able to bill.

1. Have an agenda and distribute it ahead of time. Stick to the items that are on the agenda.  If someone ventures off on a tirade that doesn’t apply to the purpose of the meeting, then the facilitator should real them back in and if needed, defer that subject to another meeting with team members that need to be involved in that subject. Topics that are not on the agenda should be deferred to a later time.

2. Establish the length of the meeting and announce it with the invitation request.  Then make sure the meeting ends at the predetermined time or earlier. Show respect for all of the attendees’ time and understand that they may have another commitment after the scheduled ending time of your meeting.

3. Arrive five minutes before the meeting is scheduled to begin.  There is always something that will come up which will make you late for the meeting. Practice this yourself and train your staff that 5 minutes early is the “New On Time” and you will find that your meetings will naturally start on time.

4. Keep meeting time short.  Schedule 15 minute “Stand Up’s”. In these meetings, no one sits down, but be sure to hold them in an area that has privacy and quiet so that no one is distracted.  If no one is sitting down, you are more likely to cover the topics quickly and move along.

5. If a follow-up meeting is needed, make sure that there is a confirmed date and time for the next meeting.  Even if someone is not sure that they will be able to attend, unless there is a solution to the date or time, schedule the meeting and if needed (with extreme discretion) move the meeting as needed.  Us caution in rescheduling meetings. Remember that you must respect the time commitments of your employees. If the majority of people are able to attend and one person cannot, have them delegate someone to attend on their behalf.

6. Outline what the next steps are that need to be taken as a result for the meeting and when those steps will be concluded. Also determine who is responsible for each next step and define how everyone in attendance will know that those steps have been completed satisfactorily.

7. Probably most important is before you ever schedule a meeting, determine if you really need to have a face-to-face meeting or can the topic be communicated via email or other means of communication? I cannot stress this enough that you really need to evaluate the cost of having the employees that you are having attend this meeting and compare it to the value of their face to face input. While I do think that meetings have their value, I see too many agencies that spend too much time in meetings where the time would be better spent and more productive in other areas.

8. Probablymost important is before you ever schedule a meeting, determine if youreally need to have a face-to-face meeting or can the topic becommunicated via email or other means of communication? I cannot stressthis enough that you really need to evaluate the cost of having theemployees that you are having attend this meeting and compare it to thevalue of their face to face input. While I do think that meetings havetheir value, I see too many agencies that spend too much time inmeetings where the time would be better spent and more productive inother areas.