If your organization is like most, we’ve got some bad news: research has shown that it’s time you start looking for some new ideas for team meetings at work. According to a survey conducted by The Muse, unproductive meetings cost businesses $37 billion (yes, with a “b”) per year in the United States alone because:
These stats serve to reinforce the stigma that meetings are frequently boring, draining, and unproductive.
But considering that meetings, in some capacity, are by and large a necessary component of running an organization, the likelihood of eliminating them completely seems unrealistic. In fact, things like planning sessions, half-day or full-day meetings, and off-site company kick-off meetings are extremely valuable when done correctly. So, instead of writing them off completely, businesses should focus on finding ways to engage attendees and get the most out of their time together.
Here are five cool meeting ideas to help you make your next planning session, long meeting, or off-site company gathering a great experience for all.
1. Get Insights from Your Team – If you want your employees to be engaged in your meetings, try getting their input and insight into what their ideal meeting would look like. You could send out a survey with a service like SurveyMonkey asking them what they would like to do or discuss for upcoming half-day or full-day meetings, planning sessions, company off-sites, or company retreats (for more on this, check out our free Online Guide: Everything You Need to Know About Planning the Ultimate Company Retreat).This could include things like:
And if you’re looking for a hands-on workshop that can help you host more productive meetings, you might like our Effective Meetings training and development program. It can help your company’s leaders learn the five great reasons to meet, determine attendees’ roles, handle people who “hijack” meetings, identify what causes ineffective meetings, and control the attendance list.
2. Find an Awesome Meeting Space – If you want your meeting to be engaging, then there’s nothing quite like heading off-site to an inspiring venue. Not that there’s anything wrong with your boardroom or office meeting spaces but there’s nothing quite like a change of scenery to help your team feel engaged and motivated, and think a little differently. There are any number of places you can go for an off-site meeting, including:We wrote a blog post that outlines some key considerations for picking venues. You might want to give it a read before you start planning your off-site meeting.
And for all the times when you do have in-house meetings, you might also want to consider making your office meeting spaces as inspiring as possible. If you’re looking for a resource that gives you some insight on how to do this, check out our guide: 50 Ways to Improve Your Office Environment.
3. Utilize “Grouping” to Create Engagement – When you stick your employees in a large group with no interaction or activity, it’s easy to see why they’d get bored and distracted – and find other ways to entertain themselves. That’s what makes “grouping” such a cool meeting idea.
To do this, introduce an overarching idea or subject to your team and then split them up into “breakout groups” to brainstorm and discuss it. This could be something like “blue sky ideas for how to attract new customers.” Give each group a pad of paper and some pens to keep track of their discussion. Then, reconvene with the full team to discuss the topic together. This will help create engagement in two ways – first, by having smaller teams collaborate on an idea and, secondly, by having each group participate in a larger discussion.
4. Implement a Little Gamification– If you’re looking for a quick way to beat the stigma that meetings are boring and unproductive, mix things up with some gamification. Games are fun, so why not incorporate constructive ones into your meetings? This can be done in a number of ways.There are a ton of great team building activities available to kick-start your meeting, including some in a self-hosted format. These ones use just an app on your phone so that you can kick the meeting off when the time is right for you and run the activity when, where, and how you’d like.
To kick-start a meeting, we’d recommend something like:
If you’ve got a packed schedule for the day and you’re short on time, we also offer a ton of express team building activities that can be done in an hour or less and can be a great way to squeeze some exciting gamification into your meeting agenda. For more, see our blog article on quick team building activities.
5. Help People Get to Know Each Other – Make your meeting a little more impactful and engaging by taking the opportunity to help colleagues get to know each other on a deeper level. Doing so will not only help them collaborate and communicate more comfortably and efficiently in the meeting, it will also offer long-term benefits as well. We recommend an icebreaker team building activity like Getting to Know You where teammates will need to learn more about one another in order to complete photo and video challenges that require them to find people in the room who match specific criteria.For more information about cool meeting ideas that can help your group increase engagement and get more out of every meeting, just reach out to our Employee Engagement Consultants.