MHS AssessmentsMHS Assessments
  • Careers
  • |
  • Blog
  • |
  • Videos
  • |
  • Clinical
    • About Clinical
    • Catalog
    • Products
    • MHS Online Assessment Center
    • Upcoming Events
      • Conferences
      • Webinars
  • Education
    • About Education
    • Catalog
    • Products
    • MHS Online Assessment Center
    • Upcoming Events
      • Conferences
      • Webinars
  • Public Safety
    • About Public Safety
    • Catalog
    • Products
    • Training for Level of Service Assessments
    • Upcoming Events
      • Conferences
  • Talent
    • About Talent
    • Catalog
    • Products
    • Talent Assessment Portal
    • WP VIP Talent Assessment Portal
    • Global Distributors
    • Certification & Training
      • Train Yourself
      • Certification Schedule
    • Upcoming Events
      • Conferences
      • Webinars
  • Assess Online
    • Clinical & Education
      • MHS Online
        Assessment Center
      • MHS Online
        Assessment Center +
      • Scoring Organizer
      • Learn Center
    • Public Safety
      • Level of Service
      • M-PULSE
    • Talent Assessment Portal
    • Education and Training
      Partnership Program
  • About Us
    • About MHS
    • About Dr. Steven Stein
    • Social Responsibility
  • Contact Us
    • Submit an Instrument
    • Data Collection
  • Careers
  • Blog
  • Videos
  • Clinical
    • About Clinical
    • Catalog
    • Products
    • MHS Online Assessment Center
    • Upcoming Events
      • Conferences
      • Webinars
  • Education
    • About Education
    • Catalog
    • Products
    • MHS Online Assessment Center
    • Upcoming Events
      • Conferences
      • Webinars
  • Public Safety
    • About Public Safety
    • Catalog
    • Products
    • Training for Level of Service Assessments
    • Upcoming Events
      • Conferences
  • Talent
    • About Talent
    • Catalog
    • Products
    • Talent Assessment Portal
    • WP VIP Talent Assessment Portal
    • Global Distributors
    • Certification & Training
      • Train Yourself
      • Certification Schedule
    • Upcoming Events
      • Conferences
      • Webinars
  • Assess Online
    • Clinical & Education
      • MHS Online
        Assessment Center
      • MHS Online
        Assessment Center +
      • Scoring Organizer
      • Learn Center
    • Public Safety
      • Level of Service
      • M-PULSE
    • Talent Assessment Portal
    • Education and Training
      Partnership Program
  • About Us
    • About MHS
    • About Dr. Steven Stein
    • Social Responsibility
  • Contact Us
    • Submit an Instrument
    • Data Collection
  • Careers
  • Blog
  • Videos

Lessons learned in changing meeting culture

Vivian Chan2020-01-27T16:42:49+00:00
By Vivian Chan Blog, Talent Assessment 1 Comment

It started with everyone being frustrated. One research report showed that employees spend 31 hours a month in unproductive meetings. Another report, drawing from Microsoft’s survey, showed that employees spend nearly a full workday’s time (5.6 hours) in meetings and 69% of them feel ineffective. This sort of frustration resonates with our organizations’ experience, so we were fueled with the desire to making meetings better. We tackled this organizational development problem by gathering the intelligence from a multidisciplinary team composed of an assessment consultant, research scientist, eLearning instructional designer, project manager, and psychometrician.

We knew that simply posting new meeting rules won’t stick with employees. Our proposed solution was to change the meeting culture by leveraging technology and teaching a new meeting process. We included a pre-intervention survey and invited meeting facilitation trainers to teach us ways to work better. It was a long and arduous one year of work, and this is what I found.

1. Remote Workers Suffer Most

We surveyed 71 employees in our organization and we found that 82% of the respondents said that meeting time is wasted because of technology issues, such as loading a teleconferencing software quickly. Moreover, training on virtual meetings also seem to be absent and it feels like people forget some practices can make virtual participation easier and smoother (see Tripp and Tyler’s ‘A Conference Call in Real Life’ video as a reference). Remote working isn’t a sin and they shouldn’t be this agonizing. How did we tackle this problem then? As a first step, we deliberately included a remote worker in the team to design and strategize for our new meeting culture.

2.Leverage Technology to Change Meeting Culture

Drawing from psychological research, we learned that changing meeting culture effectively is not by telling people what to do. Changing a culture involves changing behaviors of people. Changing behavioral habits involves new practices convenient and easy. One thing that would make an unproductive meeting more productive is to be more intentional, like preparing an agenda to know why we’re meeting and start and end the meeting on time. Preparing an agenda and keeping time for the meeting seem like a lot of work, so to encourage this habit, we investigated how we can automate calendar invites with an agenda template and ways to have a pop-up timer in meeting room computers.

3.Norms Work

After gathering every team’s feedback, we created an organization-wide meeting norm five months ago. Since then, we heard from different teams that they liked having structure for how we want to run our meetings. We found that norms are the best proactive technique for minimizing conflict.

Why do we put this much work into changing how we meet? Isn’t it easier to stop having that many meetings in the first place? No. Meetings are useful as a tool. Although it seems weird there’s so much thought into how to run meetings, we now have a tried-and-true strategy and process that can foster productivity in organizations.

Share your thoughts and strategies on how your organization makes the most of meetings.


Related Posts

employee Wellness

Developing Emotional Intelligence to Boost Employee Wellness

Mental Wellness is defined as “a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities,... read more

Women of LeadHERship – Interview Series

A Conversation with CEO & Founder of Brancu & Associates, PLLC, Mira Brancu How many of your organization’s leaders are... read more

What’s an API and how can it take my talent management to the next level?

Here at MHS, we have a lot of people talking about building, integrating, and using APIs. I have been... read more

Women of LeadHERship – Interview Series

A Conversation with MHS CPO, Jenni Pitkanen How many of your organization’s leaders are women? Have you ever worked for... read more

Join our Email List

Search

Recent Posts

  • “I’m Great At Everything”: What To Do When Someone Fakes Good On Self-Report Assessments
  • Bridging the Digital Skill Gaps
  • Through the eyes of an intern: How Gen Z views change in the workplace
  • Women of LeadHERship – Interview Series
  • Lessons Learned Planning a Workshop

Popular Posts

    5 Lessons a Team Can Learn from Geese

    What is Emotional Intelligence and How Can It Help?

    Top 5 Trends in Talent Development to Cultivate a Learning Environment

    Cultural Considerations – The Use of Assessments Across Borders

    EQ-i 2.0 vs. MSCEIT Part 1

Contact us


US: 1.800.456.3003
CAN: 1.800.268.6011
INTL: +1.416.492.2627
customerservice@mhs.com

Follow Us

Facebook Twitter Linkedin

Policy and Terms


Digital Trust
Certifications
Privacy Policy
Security Policy
Website Terms & Conditions
AODA
Test Disclosure Policy
Permissions, Translations and Licensing
Who Can Order
Shipping and Handling
Return Policy

Technical Support


Updates
System Requirements
Knowledge Base
FAQ

Join our Email List

Clinical & Education

TwitterYoutubeLinkedinFacebook

Public Safety

TwitterYoutubeLinkedinFacebook

Talent

YoutubeLinkedin

This site uses cookies, in continuing to use this and related sites you are agreeing to the use of cookies. For further information please visit our Privacy Policy.
ACCEPT
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these cookies, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may have an effect on your browsing experience.

Necessary Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.