As a manager, you quickly find out, you spend a lot more time in meetings. You’ll need to have strategy meetings, weekly check-ins with your team, one on one meetings and so on. Soon, you also need a meeting to plan next weeks meeting topics. This is probably one of the reasons most managers in the US are not engaged. Being passionate about my profession, this is unacceptable for me.
Don’t Spend Your Days in Meetings.
When I became a manager I decided that my most vital resource is my time. And as I already manage most of my time with online apps, I decided to move my meetings to an online setting as well. There are many benefits to holding all your meetings online. Most important of them the cost of holding a meeting (in both time and money).
I asked myself, if I really wanted to spend most of my time going from meeting to meeting? Do I really want to be catching up on paperwork after hours? What is the most efficient way to spend mine and my team’s time? While a lot of managers love meetings, one should ask, are they all completely necessary? If your only value is that you can run meetings, are you really worth your salary?
Automate Time-Consuming 1:1 Meetings.
I decided to tackle these meetings online. An effective 1:1 can be pretty time consuming, yet it’s vital for my team’s performance. I knew that if I could get this right, I’d be golden.
The aim of this meeting type is to get insights into your employees work. Also, you’ll get first hand feedback about their job satisfaction and their opinions. I also need to track their mood, general engagement and focus. As most of my team are working entry-level positions, I prioritize their reviews and give them clear feedback of their work (because that is what millennials want).
With an online review, I can be comfortable in knowing my team is doing well and I don’t bother them too much. 30 minute meetings I had to have with every employee, have turned into a 5 minute review process every week. My employees know: if they have something that really needs my full attention, I now have the time to see them any day of the week.
Save Time With Online Tools.
After trying a few things, I settled for Weekdone’s status reporting and review features. It is a goal setting app that lets me monitor employee’s work every week. You can use it to easily give feedback and make sure they keep their long term goals in front of them. And it isn’t only my team. Henry Mason from TrendWatching said: “Automated status reports save our managers up to 4 hours a week.”
You can easily move most of meeting online with status update reports and goal setting tools. That saves a lot of valuable time for doing strategic thinking and impactful decisions that are expected from you as a manager.
Stay True to Yourself.
I do everything in my power to do hands on work. While I love managing a team, I know both me and my team love doing meaningful work more. Automating our meetings has given us a chance to spend most of our time doing the tasks we are most passionate about and stay engaged even through stressful times. And our calendars are not filled with meetings.