With Shopify’s meeting cost calculator, Zoom’s short video clip feature, meeting costs are at the top of leaders’ minds, and for good reason. Business professionals are now, more than ever, fixated on what we know for a fact: that meetings are costly. However, what isn’t being analyzed and appreciated enough are the benefits of meetings that far outweigh the costs.
For companies, especially startups, that experience more cost than reward, there are ways to run more efficient meetings that will save time and money while boosting benefits for employees.
To run meetings that are actually cost-effective, we just have to know where to minimize, where to maximize, and how to implement changes.
Let’s get into the different costs that come with meetings. First, there is employee time. We can tag a dollar value to this cost by calculating how many hours employees spend in meetings and multiplying it by their hourly pay. Some teams find it better to put employee time into the calculation of products unsold. By recognizing how many products/services we would need to sell in order to fund our meetings, our costs become very real very quickly.
We also need to consider leaders’/managers’ time in the cost calculation. While in meetings, managers have less time to complete their work. Also, preparing and facilitating the meetings eats up more valuable time. This means managers spend more time focused on meetings than their employees, who need the information and meeting the most.
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More of a hidden cost of meetings, but a substantial one nonetheless, is productivity loss. When we attend meetings, we break the concentration and flow that we accumulate as the day progresses. It takes about 24 minutes to recover from a loss of focus, so If we attend multiple meetings a day, our productivity can plummet.
After we’ve determined what our team truly needs from a meeting, decreasing the number of expensive meetings or eliminating wasteful meetings is sometimes necessary. However, eliminating all or many meetings destroys the value created by them. Your team dynamic would suffer, information would fall through the cracks, and workplace morale would drop significantly.
Engagement. Meetings provide ample opportunity for high engagement. Facilitators can host activities and ask questions during meetings that interest and motivate employees. Indicators of engaged employees in meetings can look like active listening, participation, feedback, and collaboration in group activities.
When employees are engaged at work they’re more productive, customer satisfaction increases, employees stay longer, and everyone is happier and healthier.
Without meetings, employees would not have a chance to be actively engaged and would instead lose motivation without the help of meetings to boost employees’ interest in their work.
Team building. A meeting is a perfect setting for team building activities. Hosting team building activities brings so many benefits to your team, including solving the problem of engagement (if there is one). Team dynamics suffer when we skip team building during meetings; the value it brings is substantial and imperative to a positive and healthy work environment.
Break from daily routine. We all need breaks from our projects and typical tasks to allow our brains to be challenged in new ways and to avoid burnout. Meetings help us do just that.
Innovative collaboration. Meetings allow for unique collaboration that is less regulated and less constrained. Meetings, of course, should be kept on track and on topic, yet there are great opportunities for innovative thinking that makes for incredible collaboration. With everyone’s focus on the meeting and team members engaged with the issues at hand, meetings create a space where this innovative collaboration can thrive and lead to real progress and promising decision-making.
Feedback. To find room for improvement in your business, meetings are the time to ask employees what is working and what is not. Feedback sessions like these help strengthen employee relationships and allow the team to build a more trusting, thoughtful, and respectful relationship with leadership.
Re-establish your mission. Teams become more cohesive and motivated to strive toward a shared goal when they meet in person to discuss their goals, obstacles, and plan of attack.
The costs of meetings are very real, yet there are some misconceptions about meetings that are important to address as we work toward facilitating more cost-effective meetings:
Let’s consider a strategy we can adopt to truly drive down meeting costs. One way is to minimize inefficiencies or processes that cost more than they are worth. Another way is to maximize current processes to better the outcome of meetings, making our investment in them more valuable. When we both minimize and maximize, our meetings become incredibly efficient, effective, and worth more than what we invest in them.
To keep employees engaged, we have to first make our expectations known. What kind of contributions do you want to see? How will you ask people to participate? What happens after people contribute? Let participants know what you’re looking for so that they can fulfill those expectations.
Onto what we can maximize to host cost-effective meetings:
Nope, it will only bring benefits. Decreasing meeting costs increases profits, frees up time, improves workplace efficiency, reduces the number of resources necessary to run an effective meeting, boosts morale, and more.
Go too far and, sure, your team dynamics and processes will suffer. Going from seven meetings a week to one might affect your team and the relationships they’ve been building during those meetings. Drastically changing that dynamic can stunt collaboration, problem-solving efforts, and innovation.
Let’s conclude with a few tips and tricks to keep in mind as you work toward making meetings more cost-effective.
The success of meetings is dependent on your team dynamic and your peers’ needs, along with your organization’s obligations. Customizing meetings to tailor fit your team takes time, practice, and experience, so be patient yet persistent. Maximizing feedback is important here to get multiple opinions and perspectives on your new meeting models.
A meeting is only as good as its preparation. If you walk into a meeting with the intention of maximizing your time but have no clear agenda or expectations for participants, the meeting will absolutely fall flat.
If preparation is a time sucker for you, GettaMeeting has ready-made meetings available at the click of a button that require zero prep. Check out the different meeting modules here.
Be strategic about how you schedule meetings. Consider investing some time into finding the best time slot for your employees to meet. If you schedule a meeting that works for some but interrupts many employees’ flow, it isn’t the best time. Prioritizing the schedules of team members who must attend the meeting before those that are not required can help narrow down the time frame.
