Business meetings in the modern workplace: Why they matter and how to run them well

Do you adore business meetings or are you a sceptic?

The fact is, although the format of business meetings may have changed a lot over the years, they remain one of the most effective ways of getting things done.

We’re going to take a look at the place of meetings in the modern workplace. We’ll explore why they’re important and how you can make sure you get the most out of yours, whether in person or remotely.

Types of business meetings

The first thing to consider is what type of business meeting you’re having.

Depending on the purpose of the get-together, your overall approach will vary. This will include deciding who leads it, whether you need to create an agenda in advance, and what the best target duration for the meeting is.

Key to meeting success is tailoring the format to the purpose. So, with that in mind, let’s look at a few common types of meetings, some of which you probably have in your calendar right now:

Standups

Let’s get one thing out of the way straight from the start—it’s not compulsory to stand all the way through standup meetings. The reason for the name is that one core point of standups is their short duration, so seating isn’t required.

Granted, some managers might encourage you to stay on your feet so you’re energetic and focused. But the principal purpose here is to have a short, to-the-point catch-up with your colleagues.

Daily or weekly standup meetings can be a hugely valuable way of driving progress forward. Everyone is expected to contribute and typically to answer three questions:

• What have you been working on since the last standup?

• What will you be working on before the next one?

• Are there any barriers to achieving these tasks and, if so, what are they?

No-one should be answering these questions in huge detail; instead, they’ll be giving a brief summary of their current work tasks. That’s important. Standup meetings need to be short and snappy, and because everyone gets their turn, no individual should be talking for more than about thirty seconds to a minute.

Overall, aim at a time limit of ten minutes, fifteen at the absolute most. Any longer, and it’s not a standup anymore, but a completely different type of meeting.

One of the great things about standups is that they’re a terrific way of bonding together a hybrid workforce. That’s because the imposed time restraints mean that everyone gets to make an equal contribution, no matter where they’re located.

You just need to make sure your setup allows remote workers to feel as if they’re in the room with your on-site team. Using video conferencing technology is the obvious choice here.

Getting into the habit of holding standups means that everyone in your team stays up to date with how your broader project is going. It also makes sure that you catch any bottlenecks that are developing before they can cause a problem.

Project planning

Project planning meetings are, by definition, longer and more structured. Depending on which aspects of the project are under discussion, they may involve stakeholders from outside of the main team.

If that’s the case, it’s crucial to devote time at the beginning to making introductions. This doesn’t have to take a long time, but a basic explanation of who everyone is and what their roles are will help make sure everybody present understands who’s doing what.

The core focus of these meetings is to set goals and objectives. You’ll be deciding these collectively, so it’s important to create an environment where ideas are encouraged. That means the host should act more like a moderator than a director of events.

There’s no set structure to a planning meeting. Typically, you’ll kick things off by assessing the current situation and defining an end goal. From then on, though, planning meetings work best when they have a free flow.

Brainstorming meetings

Beloved of creatives everywhere, the brainstorming meeting is all about trying to kick your idea circuits into gear whether they’re ready or not.

Without any structure at all, these could be pretty chaotic, you’d think. But in practice, what actually tends to happen without a clearly defined brainstorming path to follow is that people simply don’t come up with very many ideas.

It may seem counterintuitive, but a tight structure is essential for brainstorming meetings in order for them to work. This can take many formats, but one common pattern is to divide participants into teams and give them one specific creative task to work on, with a clearly defined brief.

Next, get all the teams to present their ideas to the group. Everyone can then discuss the results and the conversation can flow from there.

This is another type of business meeting that works pretty well with remote workers. In fact, in this context, they sometimes have the edge over those working on-site, since they have easy access to all kinds of real-world influences that aren’t available in the office.

If you’re brainstorming with a hybrid team, some video conferencing software can help with summarising these meetings. For example, Dialpad Ai's generative abilities can create a meeting summary that captures an overview of the meeting for all attendees:

Training sessions

In the modern business environment, continuous training is an essential component of career development.

Although many training tasks involve your staff reading documents or engaging with interactive training software, guided training sessions remain a core part of a well-planned training programme.

Since the core purpose of this type of business meeting is to transfer knowledge, the dynamic is pretty straightforward. It’s an instructional space rather than a collaborative one.

This means that it’s particularly suited to specific scenarios, such as:

• Onboarding for new hires

• Sharing a new client brief

• Important compliance updates

In other words, it’s ideal for when you need to get a group of people up to speed with a new batch of information.

The importance of business meetings: Challenging the “couldn’t this be an email?” culture

There’s no doubt that some meetings may not be entirely necessary. And it’s certainly understandable that anyone whose day is packed full of them may become frustrated if they feel attending meetings is getting in the way of completing other tasks.

That said, there’s a reason business meetings are still popular. They provide a number of benefits that are difficult to replicate with other communication channels:

Face-to-face interaction

Firstly and most importantly, meetings provide a space for colleagues to get together in person.

This presents a superb opportunity to foster personal connections and build rapport with the rest of your team. It promotes teamwork and helps you build stronger professional relationships.

Face-to-face interaction is also crucial because people use a lot of non-verbal cues when they talk. And you certainly won’t be able to catch these nuances on a messaging app.

Promoting active participation

In most meeting settings, everyone participating has the opportunity to actively engage with the topics being discussed. This is great for exchanging ideas and encouraging collaboration, especially when you use a purpose-built business meetings solution.

The deeper point here is that when people have the chance to contribute their unique expertise and perspectives, it gives them a sense of ownership. You’re more likely to positively commit to the ideas generated or goals set, because you feel you played your part in creating them.

Relationship-building with stakeholders

So you’ve landed that big new client. What’s next?

Enter the chemistry meeting. Although it’s perfectly possible to conduct business via email or other written channels, the reality is that it takes in-person contact to truly begin to build trust.

Meetings with external stakeholders like clients, suppliers, or business partners create the ideal foundation for building and nurturing successful relationships.

Face-to-face interaction has a crucial role to play in strengthening collaboration and improving mutual understanding of needs and expectations.

Boosting team spirit

These days, it can be difficult to foster a genuine sense of team spirit, particularly in a remote or hybrid team. Holding regular meetings on a schedule gives everyone a chance to come together and bond.

Cultivating this habit provides an avenue for open communication, too. If anyone has any concerns, you can address them directly. It also provides a space where you can celebrate each other’s successes, which is a great way of boosting morale and reminding yourselves why you do what you do.

Effective decision-making

Some decisions are time-critical. This means that dealing with complex issues and problem-solving often require real-time discussions. This is where meetings really come into their own.

Imagine that a critical situation develops that needs some kind of crisis response. Meetings facilitate open dialogue and collective decision-making, which makes it easier to formulate a plan under pressure.

In a meeting, you can clarify any misunderstandings immediately and build a consensus for how to take effective action.

8 general tips for a successful business meeting

Whether you’re holding a meeting in person or remotely, there are a few business meeting tips that apply universally:

1. Set clear objectives

First and foremost, you need to establish what you’re aiming to achieve. It’s crucial to clearly define the purpose and desired outcome of the meeting. This helps everyone participating understand what to expect and keeps the discussion focused on your core aims.

2. Decide whether you need an agenda

Not all business meetings need a set agenda. There’s no point in making one for meetings that have a narrow focus, such as a one-to-one manager/team member chat, for example.

However, for larger, more general meetings, it’s best to follow a specific plan. In this case, you should create a detailed agenda and share it with participants in advance.

Typically, an agenda will include topics, time allocations, and any pre-work or materials that attendees need to review beforehand. Doing this makes sure everyone is well-informed and ready to go as soon as they turn up.

3. Invite the right people

You need to ensure that the right individuals are invited to the meeting, according to their role and how relevant it is for the meeting topic.

There are two aspects to this tip. That’s because while it’s vital not to leave anyone out, it’s also crucial not to insist on the presence of people who really don’t need to be there. Limit the number of attendees to those who can actively contribute or benefit from the discussion.

4. Start and end on time

Everyone’s very busy. There’s nothing worse than being at a meeting that starts ten minutes late and then drags on long beyond the planned end time.

So, begin the meeting promptly to show that you respect your attendees. Similarly, end the meeting as scheduled, or even a few minutes early to allow participants to get ready for whatever’s next on their schedule.

You’ll find that encouraging a punctual culture also has the knock-on benefit that it keeps everyone focused during the meeting. It makes it much less likely that the more talkative members of the team will hold court a little too long.

5. Manage time effectively

In order to end on time, of course, you need to keep things moving along while the meeting is in progress. Keep it on track by dedicating specific time allocations for each agenda item.

If discussions go off-topic or go on too long, gently steer the conversation back to the agenda. You can suggest tabling the topic for further discussion to give good ideas further space for consideration.

6. Encourage active participation

Some people are quicker to get involved in discussions than others. But to truly get the most out of a meeting, everyone should be engaging with the topic.

Create an inclusive environment that encourages all participants to contribute. You can do this by asking for opinions in a targeted way, addressing quieter team members directly to ensure everyone has a chance to participate.

7. Document key points

A record of any important meeting is crucial. It should summarise key decisions, action items, and responsibilities.

You can share this document with all the participants afterwards. It’s a useful way of recapping the discussion and jogging everyone’s memory. That way, everyone knows what they’re supposed to be focusing on.

Fortunately, Dialpad can cover this for you. The meeting summary feature compiles a searchable transcript, action items, and notes into an easily digestible overview email.

8. Evaluate and fine-tune

Possibly one of the most important tips for business meeting success is to remember that it’s not quite over when it’s over. In your head, the running order of a business meeting should include the debrief.

After the meeting, evaluate how well it went. Solicit feedback from participants to identify where you could improve next time and adjust future meetings accordingly.

How to conduct a business meeting successfully with a remote or hybrid workforce

So that’s the theory. But let’s take some time now to explore how to conduct an effective business meeting in practice, when not everyone is in the room. Remote meetings pose some specific challenges, and it’s best to be prepared.

Get familiar with the tech beforehand

Many of us have experienced an “I think you’re on mute” moment. It happens. Luckily, that sort of problem is easily put right in seconds. If you’re hosting a meeting, though, you need to make sure you understand the platform you’re using inside-out before you start.

If you don’t, chances are you’ll run into technical difficulties at some point. Say you want to share a presentation with your colleagues, for example. A good video conferencing platform will have a handy screen sharing function you can deploy for effective collaboration purposes. But, if you don’t know how to use it properly, you might waste time having to fiddle with settings on the fly.

All in all, that just doesn’t project the kind of professional image that inspires confidence. So it’s crucial you know what you’re doing ahead of time.

Develop a turn-taking etiquette

Conducting business meetings remotely tends to amplify people’s speaking habits. That’s to say that people who talk a lot will tend to talk more, and people who say little might say nothing at all.

It all comes down to the fact that in-person conversations involve a complex subconscious etiquette. Given that this is largely based on how we respond to body language, it’s easy to see why this falls apart when all we can see of our colleagues is their head on a screen.

So it’s vital to be proactive when it comes to setting out the rules for who gets to speak and when. As the host, make sure you call on people by name to give them a chance to contribute.

For free-flowing discussions, get your colleagues to use signals when they want to interrupt rather than just start talking. That then puts you in the driving seat so that you can keep the meeting on track.

Turn the cameras on

This might not be universally popular, but it’s good practice. Have you ever been in a meeting where half the participants are both muted and have their cameras turned off? It’s a little unnerving, like talking to people who aren’t actually there.

And even though you would never doubt the professionalism of your team, let’s face it, how do you know nobody’s taking a sneaky nap?

Keeping the cameras turned on at all times shows that everyone is engaged and ready to contribute. It’s also an important indication of mutual respect, which is absolutely fundamental to team cohesion.

Don’t forget huddle rooms

Some types of business meetings benefit from dividing up into teams. Creative meetings like strategy or brainstorming sessions, for example, can work best when participants discuss topics in small groups and then report their ideas for general consumption.

This can be particularly useful if your meeting is so large that it’s difficult to ensure everyone gets a chance to speak. In that scenario, using virtual huddle rooms can be a good way of ensuring that all participants can contribute their ideas.

Switch up the environment

To keep things fresh, why not try holding meetings where participants are encouraged to go outside? These days, there’s no need to be deskbound for most meetings.

Tech like Dialpad allows one-tap device switching, so it’s easy to move from your desktop to a mobile device without abandoning the meeting.

Going for a walk could be just the thing to give engagement a boost. After all, there’s nothing like getting some fresh air to lift the spirits and get those creative juices flowing.

Follow up with a detailed recap

After the meeting, you should send a debrief to remind everyone what was covered. This should include a summary of outcomes and actionable tasks, along with a list of who is responsible for making each one happen.

If you have access to a modern communications platform like Dialpad, you’ll be able to take advantage of AI transcription. This feature provides an automatically generated written version of everything that was said during the call.

It’s ideal for post-meeting recaps because it provides a comprehensive record of who said what, meaning that participants can check back if they need to.

Run effective business meetings and keep your teams productive

There’s a lot to think about when you’re hosting business meetings. Doing it well is both an art and a science, and you should never lose sight of the human aspect. The truth is that meetings are only ever as effective as the participants are engaged.

At Dialpad, we understand that getting the best out of your people means using the best tools available.

Our AI-driven communications platform comes packed with functionality and integrations specially designed to help your meetings flow seamlessly. That’s how we help you take your meetings to the next level and make sure your teams will be at their productive best.