Bringing your team together is crucial to moving forward in business, but it can sometimes be a challenge. When everyone is busy, finding a date and time that works is not easy. We’ve all seen how difficult it can be to work around many different schedules.
But just because it’s a challenge, doesn’t mean it isn’t worth the effort. A well-timed meeting can improve the collaboration that takes place and support your organisation.
To help you improve your meeting schedule, we’ve put together five helpful tips:
Plan In Advance
Preparation is one of the most important aspects of running any organisation. When it comes to scheduling a meeting, you can’t afford to leave it until the last minute. Everyone will have responsibilities to juggle, and planning in advance will give them the tools for proper time management.
The other advantage of planning in advance is that you can gain a better understanding of when the meeting should take place. By taking a broad look at the calendar, you can account for seasonal trends. This might include things like peak season, changes in management, staff reviews, or the new tax year.
Learn From The Past
Every company has a unique history of collaboration to draw from. Take note when the meeting time works for everyone and when it doesn’t. If you find the energy is lacking at a particular meeting, there may be a reason for this.
Remember, you can always ask for feedback! Waiting for your team to come to you with their complaints will promote a negative mindset. By asking them directly for the best times, you can ensure they will be ready and excited about the meeting.
Remain Flexible
As we’ve mentioned, planning in advance is crucial. However, the past year has shown how things can change. You have to be able to adapt if things don’t go your way and a degree of flexibility will improve your organisational structure. This is particularly important in the age of Covid-19 where changes to regulation can impact your ability to meet.
Online working makes this far easier, as you can choose a date and time that works for everyone. Depending on the nature of your business, you may find adaptability more or less important. When planning your calendar, you need to find a balance between stability and flexibility.
One way to balance this could be to set up more regular, flexible meetings with the executive committee. This is a small team of the most crucial members that can deal with issues at short-notice. This will leave your Board Meetings free to discuss the long-term issues faced by the company.
A key benefit of online working is being able to adapt to changes as they come. Make the most of this bonus!
Check Time Zones
Another advantage of remote meetings is that your team can come together from anywhere in the world. However, it’s often easy to forget about time zones. When you move to an online meeting, make sure to pick a time that suits everyone.
This isn’t just about making sure the meeting starts at a reasonable time (and avoiding 3am meetings!). It’s also about considering how long the meeting will continue for and making adjustments. Perhaps your team would be happy to work late, but they will not produce the best work if they are overly exhausted.
Send Out Invites Early
The right time for your meeting is only perfect if everyone is prepared. Even if you’ve done everything on this list and set the ideal date, it’s useless unless your team is aware of that date. Pay attention to when you send out your invites. Too late, and they may not be able to manage their time effectively.
Everything on this list applies to when you send out the invites. Don’t send the invites last thing on a Friday unless you have to. If half of your team is in a time-zone that is four hours behind, pay attention to when it would be useful for them to receive the information.
How Can Convene Help Your Schedule Meetings?
With a Board Portal like Convene, you can schedule a meeting and send out the invites with a few clicks. Select a meeting type, title, date and time before adding agenda items, publishing and notifying attendees.
You can also schedule future meetings with the same template. This will improve efficiency within your organisation and allow you to learn from the past. Our comprehensive meeting management software comes with the ability to copy the agenda and outstanding action points from previous meetings.
Convene is designed to support your organisation at every part of the meeting process. From scheduling the meeting to creating a secure audit trail, you can ensure effective communication. To learn more about maintaining good governance, read our customer success stories or contact us today.
