3 Ways to Make Weekly Team Meetings More Useful

The majority of teams have a weekly slot where they get together and have an update meeting, with even remote workers often dialling in to touch base with everybody else. However, these meetings seem to vary between different workplaces from being motivating, efficient and useful, to being a weekly drag that everybody tries to get out of so they can get on with what they were doing. It is really important for teams to have regular sessions together and a weekly team meeting can be a very good idea, but it is just as important to ensure that what you do in these meetings is actually a good use of the time.

Here are three ways to make your weekly team catch up more effective:

Have an Agenda People Can Add To All Week
Whether you keep a simple spreadsheet on a shared directory, add things to the meeting request on the shared calendar system, or use another method, keep an agenda for the next weekly meeting somewhere everyone can access and encourage people to add stuff they’d like to raise or give an update about to it throughout the week. This way you can make sure the things that are talked about are thought about in advance and time can be given to them, meaning the meetings can stay under control and everyone has an easy way to bring things up.

Keep a Rolling List of Training Topics for Quieter Meetings
Some weeks, there just won’t be that much to talk about, but since this is generally the only time in the week you are all together and everyone already has it blocked out on their calendars, you can use those quiet weeks to give a little bit of training. Keep a list of ideas you can talk about or have one of the team present on at these times, for instance tips for using your recruitment management software better, sales training, or communications training. You can find good ideas and resources online and these can end up being really beneficial sessions.

Reward Success
If you have any incentives you give out to people who have performed well, the team meeting is a great time to do it, as it makes sure performance is recognised in front of the whole team and also gives the whole meeting a more positive feel. Even if it is just doing a verbal round up of the good things that have been achieved in the past week and giving credit where it’s due, using a slot of your team meeting to thank and reward people is an excellent way to boost morale, and also make the team see the meetings as a pleasant part of their weekly schedule rather than an annoying diversion from their work.

These are just three ways you can adapt your team meetings to make the best possible use of the time, and ensure your team members find the sessions valuable.