Meetings are often viewed as the necessary evil for staff communications. While I agree that meetings can usurp precious time if not handled effectively, I posit that a weekly staff meeting is crucial to strong team connectivity from two perspectives – information sharing and team socialization. Further, when staff meetings are done correctly, the result is a focused and energized team for the upcoming workweek.
Staff meetings are done correctly by scheduling weekly sessions for the same day and time, preparing an agenda with opportunities for each team member to take part, and recording minutes, or the outcome, of each staff meeting. Minute documentation provides a way to keep track of open issues until resolution is in place and provides historical views for team growth, as well as providing a written record for team members not in attendance, e.g. vacation or illness.
Our BlueSky Meeting Solution software is key to managing our weekly staff meetings. The system remembers the weekly intervals and selects the date and time as a default. The weekly agenda has evolved over time, and with standing items, I can quickly move items in or out of a particular session with the click of a mouse. There is a clear historical view of how the LightSky team has evolved through the staff meeting archives dating back to June 2010 when we began the purposeful process of recording minutes.
The fact that BlueSky resides in the cloud affords the opportunity to adjust agendas and items as I think about the detail, so I rarely forget to ‘remember’ to add pertinent information to share with the team no matter where I may be – in the office, at the beach, or at home. During times when I am out of the office, anyone can manage the weekly agenda, and the momentum is maintained with the ability to create and manage staff meetings with future dates. The entire team can see past, present and future staff meeting activity so there is no reason for a LightSky team member to be out of the information loop!