Department meetings bring your team together—they're a chance to brainstorm strategies, gather stakeholders to make tough decisions, and unlock creative solutions to problems. Without an effective team meeting, the Mission Control team behind Apollo 13 would never have improvised a way to fit a square peg into a round hole to solve the spacecraft's CO2 problem and ultimately bring the crew home alive.
But team meetings aren't usually as successful as this, and often they have a bad reputation. Research from the University of North Carolina suggests that:
Why? Companies miss opportunities to maximize the value of their department meetings, resulting in misaligned teams that impact business success. This guide will put your teams back on track with expert advice on how to host meetings, what and who to include, and how to keep team relationships at the forefront of your meeting strategy.
Breaking with tradition is challenging if your company has always followed the same meeting approach. Need a nudge? Here are some tell-tale signs your meetings are stale and desperately need a makeover:
Productive meetings take planning, effort, and clear communication to ensure alignment across your team. Overhaul your meetings by considering these 13 essential points before you plug your next meeting into the calendar:
Meetings can hamper productivity by eating into schedules and interrupting someone’s focus time. Harvard Business Review reported that meetings have increased by 13% since before the pandemic began in 2020. While many workers appreciate the interaction and collaborative opportunities, 67% believe excessive meetings prevent them from completing their work.
Nectar Tip: The next time you're scheduling a meeting, consider condensing the content of the discussion into an email, Slack message, asynchronous video message, or phone call instead. If you think you can do that, cancel the meeting.
How often should you host staff meetings? Striking the right balance between connection and overkill is a challenge. Determine the frequency of your sessions by team size, how quickly you all must make decisions, and the nature of your work. For example, a team of engineers who need to make rapid production decisions might meet more often than a team of marketers focusing on long-term projects.
Nectar’s workplace connection study of 800 full-time US employees revealed that team meeting frequency varies greatly. Most teams meet weekly (42.5%) and monthly (25%.)
It's encouraging that more than half of employees have the opportunity to connect with their peers at least once a week. But clearly, there's work to be done for the 1 in 10 employees who are never invited to discuss key topics with their colleagues.
Some companies may limit the volume of people who attend a meeting. Others focus less on numbers and more on giving attendees specific roles that enable an effective department meeting. Tim Toterhi, CHRO of Plotline Leadership, shared with us:
“Department meetings run smoothly when people know the rules of engagement. Specifically, whose yes means yes, whose no means no, and how ideas are to be surfaced, considered, and evaluated in the messy middle of a conversation.
When you ask people to play a specific role, you simultaneously demonstrate an appreciation for their professional input and respect for their personal contribution. Whether it’s a subject matter expert, an employee rep, a budget holder, or even a devil’s advocate transparently placed to gut-check ideas in real-time, purpose breeds understanding and collaboration.
When decisions are made, all feel heard. And, by switching roles based on topic and team expertise, leaders get the bonus of on-the-job development.”
Some roles to consider include:
Establishing common goals for your team lets everyone know what to expect and holds them accountable for the outcome of the meeting. Your organizational goals might be:
Planning meetings such as marketing or product roadmaps, campaigns, or event planning generally involve the whole team and should have tangible outcomes.
Example Goal: Create a plan to launch a new product line in three months.
Team building or social meetings invite informal discussions, which are essential for building rapport, fostering relationships, and allowing employees to learn more about each other.
Example Goal: Get to know your team members better and create a space where everyone feels psychologically safe to share their ideas.
Project update meetings are your chance to discuss budget, project scope, task assignments, workflows, and initiatives. These meetings should also review any technical issues or potential risks affecting the project's success.
Example Goal: Discuss the progress of Project X and create a strategy to overcome any roadblocks.
Growth meetings are for brainstorming, ideation sessions, and strategic planning. They might involve an outside speaker to provide cross-industry insights or a presentation from another internal department.
Example Goal: Brainstorm ideas about new products and services that will help your business grow in the next quarter.
This type of meeting addresses a specific issue or challenge. Meeting attendees should come prepared with their findings, research, and ideas to solve the problem.
Example Goal: Find a solution to reduce customer complaints by 50% in the next two weeks.
In any department meeting, an agenda keeps your discussion on track. Jonathan Zacharias, Founder of GR0, also believes this simple step can be a game-changer in allowing your attendees to mentally prepare for the meeting. He told us:
“For better department meetings, set a clear agenda ahead of time so everyone knows what to expect. In doing this, you can also encourage participation from all team members and create a safe space for sharing ideas. Assign a task on your project management app for employees to add to the agenda or leave relevant comments. You'll quickly find that your team members will become excited about meetings when they have input.”
In terms of planning, Matthew Ramirez, CEO of Paraphrase Tool, recommends sending the department meeting agenda out to all participants a few days beforehand, allowing them to:
"Review the information and prepare any relevant materials or questions. This not only helps everyone come to the meeting with the same expectations and understanding of the topics but also encourages active participation and engagement in discussions."
Your agenda could include:
Plan for a few extra minutes at the end of your meeting to review any action items or tasks you need to assign. Leaving some room at the end ensures everyone is on the same page and knows who is responsible for each task.
Nectar Tip: Schedule meetings for 25 or 55 minutes, allowing participants to have a 5-minute comfort break at the end if they're locked in back-to-back meetings.
Maintain focus in your department meetings to maximize the time available. Ben Lau, Founder of Featured, told us:
“One effective strategy for leaders to make department meetings more effective is to limit distractions, such as cell phones and side conversations. This ensures all participants are engaged and focused on the topics at hand.”
Typical distractions will vary depending on the location of your meeting and whether you have people dialing in from their home offices. Consider setting ground rules on the following:
Meetings will only be successful if your team feels free to speak up and voice their opinions, ideas, and concerns. Ben Flynn, Marketing Manager at Manhattan Tech Support, believes in the power of inclusive environments to avoid employee disengagement and provide a comfortable space where everyone feels involved. He told us:
“Asking open-ended questions and aggressively soliciting feedback from all participants is one method to accomplish this. In my opinion, leaders should also consider tactics like round-robin brainstorming, in which everyone in the room takes turns offering their ideas.”
Teams struggling with communication or interpersonal dynamics can use icebreaker questions at the beginning of a discussion to get everyone warmed up and energized. Check out these 101 icebreaker ideas for inspiration.
Part of creating a safe space involves setting firm communication boundaries, especially regarding disagreement. Andrew Dale, Technical Director at CloudTech24, offers his perspective:
“Disagreements are an inevitable element of any group conversation, but leaders must be prepared to manage conflicts and keep the discussion on track. One method to accomplish this is to acknowledge differing points of view and promote debate while establishing ground rules for respectful dialogue.
For example, the leader could request that participants stop interrupting one another, speak one at a time, and refrain from making personal attacks.”
However, Nadzeya Sankovich, Senior Journalist for Health Reporter, prefers to avoid disagreements during meetings. She shared her experience with us:
“I've learned that steering clear of disagreements and chaos in meetings hinges on fostering a culture of collaboration. I've found it invaluable to coach my team to approach discussions with an open mindset, listening to diverse perspectives before forming conclusions.
During a recent editorial meeting, we faced a contentious decision regarding story prioritization. Instead of allowing the room to dissolve into factions, I implemented a 'round robin' approach. Each team member had a chance to voice their thoughts and potential solutions, promoting a sense of unity and mutual respect.
This strategy effectively kept disagreement at bay, engaged everyone present, and steered us clear of chaos. Cultivating this collaborative culture takes time and patience, but the payoff in productive, harmonious meetings is well worth it.”
Whether you prefer to encourage healthy debate or avoid contentious issues, setting the rules before your meeting begins is essential.
Being respectful of all meeting participants means actively listening to their contributions and not interrupting anyone or dismissing their points. Active listening is a critical skill that meeting leaders can model to encourage everyone present to follow suit. Skip this step, and your meeting can descend into chaos. Co-founder and HR Head Jefferson McCall shares how this works at TechBullish:
“One of the key strategies we used to make our department meetings more effective is to promote active listening and clear communication among our team members. We encourage everyone to come prepared with their ideas and suggestions and then take turns presenting them in a structured and concise manner.
During the presentation, other team members are encouraged to ask questions and provide feedback to ensure they fully understand the message being conveyed. To promote active listening, we use methods like summarizing what was said or repeating the key points to ensure everyone is on the same page.”
Disagreements can and will happen, even if you've set ground rules and demonstrated exceptional interpersonal skills. Your team members may feel passionate about the direction of an upcoming project or be impacted by company decisions such as layoffs that affect their workload or departmental budget. Ideally, employees will express themselves while being respectful and collaborative. But some signs that your meeting is becoming argumentative include:
When you recognize these signs, it's time to intervene. Speak up and calmly remind everyone of the ground rules, or suggest taking a break to cool off. If it becomes clear that the meeting isn't productive or respectful, consider ending it so everyone can take the time to reflect on how they can better participate in future sessions.
Natalia Morozova, Partner, Cohen, Tucker & Ades Immigration Law Firm, warns:
“As the department leader, do not allow these discussions to get out of hand. You can do this by politely interrupting people when it's time to move on to the next topic. As a last resort, you may have to mute people if they are acting inappropriately, which you can do if you are the host of a remote meeting.”
At the opposite end of the communication spectrum, meetings are a fantastic opportunity to praise your team. Nectar's recent employee recognition survey highlights the power that positive feedback has on motivation and productivity in the workplace:
Beth Smith, Life Coach and Owner of Thriving With Resilience, reveals:
“I always call out the stars of a particular project and document their names in the minutes of the meeting. When the minutes go out in an email, everyone sees who was given a shoutout for outstanding work. Ensure you recognize everyone on the team. I have found that "Thank You" goes a long way and helps to build morale. Show your team that you see them and appreciate their hard work.”
Similarly, Joe Li, Managing Director of CheckYa, explains how to invite meeting participants to share updates so you can collectively reward their success:
“Honor exceptional workers, project teams, and accomplishments, or share gratifying client comments. A job well done gets recognized, which raises morale. Invite colleagues to share updates on their current tasks, priorities, triumphs, and difficulties at work by scheduling time for this purpose.”
No one wants to feel stuck in endless meetings. Back in 1976, Antony Jay’s advice in an HBR article read, “If meetings have a tendency to go on too long, the chairman should arrange to start them one hour before lunch or one hour before the end of work."
Instead of eating into workers' personal time, modern-day advice is to plan the meeting appropriately so it stays on track. Roy Lau, Co-founder at 28 Mortgage, told us:
“Use time limits for agenda items and encourage efficient discussions to prevent meetings from running over. Set clear expectations regarding time constraints and assign a timekeeper to monitor progress. Come prepared, stay on-topic, and table lengthy discussions for follow-up meetings.”
At the end of your meeting, make clear decisions and assign action points. You might use one of the following systems to do so:
Top companies are constantly refining their meeting approach to maximize efficiency, reduce staff burnout, and produce exceptional company results. Check out how these top organizations handle department discussions:
Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos is famously skeptical of meetings, believing that just one person with a bad attitude can drain a room of its energy. Bezos sticks to a strict "two pizzas" rule to keep Amazon meetings in check, meaning there should never be more people than you can feed with a couple of 14" pizzas. Pack any more people into the meeting, and Bezos believes productivity starts to wane.
Netflix's Company Culture page documents its approach to scheduling meetings with a clear purpose in mind. The company prepares an agenda and determines what to discuss in a synchronous real-time session compared to offline conversations such as email. Meeting time is set aside for shared learning experiences rather than approving tactical decisions.
All Hands and Town Halls are two types of large group meetings organizations use to make announcements, share company updates, and answer questions. Buffer differentiates between the two by using All Hands for CEO and leadership team presentations on strategy and direction, while Town Halls are for Q&A. The company runs its All Hands meetings monthly, incorporating fun elements such as lively celebrations and icebreakers to keep everyone engaged in a remote team.
In early 2023, Shopify's leadership team told its employees that every recurring meeting with three or more people would be automatically canceled and must not be reinstated for at least two weeks. Instructions from Shopify's COO and VP of Product Kaz Nejatian were to be "really, really critical about what you're adding back." Further solidifying Shopify's stance on meetings being "a bug," the company also mandates that Wednesdays remain meeting-free.
Another company cracking down on bad meetings is Gitlab, which holds an annual meeting cleanup day on or close to February 14th. All employees use this checkpoint to examine their calendars and focus on the value and frequency of recurring meetings. Team members should feel empowered to:
Meetings are essential to bring your entire team together, whether face-to-face or in a virtual setting. Nectar offers several tools to support these gatherings by encouraging positive peer-to-peer bonds.
Our Recognition tool enables colleagues to give meaningful shoutouts to each other, inviting frequent praise into your company culture. Nectar’s Challenge tool is ideal for incentivizing your teams to work towards common business goals, and our Milestones feature reminds everyone about significant anniversaries and birthdays, so you'll never forget to give someone a special mention in your next meeting.
Start improving team rapport today by booking a Nectar demo.
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