“I love meetings!” – said no one ever. Most employees don’t look forward to meetings as they are often viewed as disruptive, inefficient, or downright boring.

This is a problem, since according to a study by Verizon the average professional attends roughly 60 meetings per month. Furthermore, inefficient meetings can be very costly for companies. These costs include:

  • $37 billion is lost annually to meetings.
  • $338 in average salary cost of a meeting.
  • 15% of organizational personnel budget is spent on meetings.

Of course, meetings are an important and necessary part of business. When meetings are run efficiently they can be very powerful collaborative tools. The key consideration to ask yourself before scheduling any meeting—to ensure your meeting is productive—is if having the meeting is essential, or can the goals of the proposed meeting be achieved through other avenues. This will help you determine what type of meeting you should have, and if you should have the meeting at all.

Once you’ve determined that having the meeting is necessary, there are some best practices you can follow during and before the meeting to ensure you’re meeting is efficient and productive.Running Efficient Meetings InfographicThere are also a number of helpful tools you can leverage to increase the efficiency and efficacy of your meetings. These tools include:

  • Harvard Business Review’s meeting cost calculator – calculate the cost of a potential meeting based on duration, number of attendees, and estimated salaries of each attendee.
  • LessMeeting – software that gives meeting organizers the ability to create and share agendas, allocate discussion time, take and share meeting notes, and assign action times.
  • Slack – avoid unnecessary meetings by solving issues with real-time chat.
  • Doodle – schedule meetings quickly and easily.
  • LiquidSpace – book local conference rooms and meeting spaces by the hour.
  • Team Meeting Timer – set timers for meetings to keep discussions on track and end meetings on time.
  • MindMeister – an app that makes mind mapping a breeze.

And of course, there are a variety of remote conferencing tools to choose from for remote meetings, such as:

Use these tools and tips to increase efficiency and have more productive meetings.

Sources:

Attentiv | Business Insider | ChargeSpot | Fast Company | Inc | Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology | MIT | Occupational Digest | The British Psychological Society | University of Nevada Reno | Verizon