TSM - Sorry, I’m in a meeting. I’ll call you later!!!

Vlad Haiduc - Teambuilding Manager @ Azimut Happy Employees

„Sorry, I’m in a meeting. I’ll call you later!!!”

We constantly hear this statement. It is due to the fact that meetings take up most of our time throughout the day. We often schedule and attend meetings whenever we want to plan or take action. Having a lot of these rendezvous, company meetings have become one of the most common time thieves which have a negative impact on our productivity. If we add the 69% of the people who consider meetings inefficient and the 9% of those who literally fall asleep at meetings, we can conclude that these types of encounters have a major impact on the overall performance in the workplace environment.

Employers began to understand this need that employees have, especially in the cases where it is more likely to appear in the ranks of middle management. Sometimes, in the quest for finding solutions to the problem, we forget generational needs are different. The reactions of millennials (those born between 1980-2000) towards meetings are different from the reactions of those who are about to retire or are waiting for a promotion (after a 10-year service).

So, where do we start?

Microsoft Corp. performed a study in which they found that, due to a more digitalized lifestyle, young people have an attention span of 8 seconds. 77% of those interviewed, between the ages of 18 and 24, state that if nothing catches their attention directly, they turn to their mobile phones.

When it comes to direct interaction, even if they are technology freaks and connoisseurs, the people in the study prefer face-to-face meetings to video or remote conferences. Dan Schawbel states that the Y Generation is “a generation whose voice must be heard and which must participate in conversation instead of sitting and staring at a video-projector.”

We understand that different generations have different needs, but there is a specific set of actions which brings all generations closer together, when it comes to meetings. Steps to take:

Improving meetings one step at a time and implementing solutions which work and are relevant for your business and team, you can transform the regular meetings in useful moments, full of knowledge transfer and creative ideas.

“Sorry, I forgot to call you, I had a very pleasant meeting and forgot all about it…”

Sources:

  1. http://www.apbspeakers.com/resources/whitepapers/SchawbelWhitePaper.pdf
  2. https://www.cimunity.com/fileadmin/uploads/startseite_de/What-Millennials-Want-in-Meetings.pdf
  3. The manager’s pocket guide to strategic and business planning by Stephen G. Haines