Top Corporate Meetings Trends for 2021

Corporate meetings in 2021

Corporate meetings are a good way to improve your business. In a corporate meeting, employees are informed about news in the company, occurring problems are being discussed and solved, new ideas are developed and colleagues have the possibility to connect with each other. Despite their importance, meetings are not really popular among employees. They are often perceived as devourers of time that just aren’t that beneficial for the company, since they don’t provide immediate results most of the time. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Meetings can be very productive and can add value to the company.

In this article we will surely give you some insights into the vast world of meetings. Maybe you will find some interesting, new ways of conducting them and consider to implement some tips to tackle the traps of boring, ineffective meetings!

1. Is it really necessary?

First of all, ask yourself: Do we really need to have this meeting? Will it waste the time of some employees? If you don’t think that the attendees will get something important out of it, consider just cancelling it. There are times when a meeting would work better as an email thread.

On the other hand, if you decide that this meeting should take place and that the employees will benefit from it, it is time that you declare the type of meeting: are you going to inform employees about something, are you developing new ideas or do you need to make a decision. Also, it is important to communicate this with the attendees, so that they know what to expect.

2. Find the niche

Niche meetings are becoming extremely popular. Those are meetings that are specialized and in their focus is a specific subject or problem. Those meetings are trendy, because they are precise and they go into details of one subject. In today’s fast paced world employees don’t like to waste their time on things they already know or that aren’t important to them. If they attend a niche meeting, they will get what they expect and they can focus their energy and time on something that is really important or interesting to them.

3. Make it concise

As we have mentioned, meetings are great: they connect employees, help to think outside of the box, solve problems. But meeting shouldn’t be very time consuming. They should be short and sweet! Here, once again, organization and structure are key: the meeting has to be well planned and it needs to have a head and a tail. If not, they will last for too long and people will probably find it difficult to stay alert since they will simply get bored at some point. In general, attendees are not completely focused on a meeting and they tend to do other work simultaneously while they are in a meeting. So, our suggestion is to make is concise, lively and enchanting. This way, people will get more interested and you will have their attention. Who knows, if you are lucky, maybe they will even put away their phone.

4. Communication is crucial

In the business world personal communication is in vogue. The companies of today tend to avoid Q & A sessions which were a norm in the past. A Q&A session is usually an amount of time set aside at the end of a meeting for the attendees to ask questions. But as we said this pattern isn’t interesting anymore and you should consider a more modern approach to communication with your colleagues/employees. We are opting for a personal touch which in the end allows everyone to be more open and at ease. Also, this isn’t limited to employees only. A more personal approach to costumers is also important and it makes the company more popular, widens the number of followers on social media and makes better business results possible.

5. Visual aspect

The content and length of a meeting aren’t the only things to think about. You should give the aesthetic aspect also some thoughts: Where does the meeting take place? What is the atmosphere like? First of all, you will need to make sure that your meeting space is appropriate for business. The conference environment needs to be pleasant and the room temperature should be adequate. If people feel comfortable there is a better chance that the meeting will be perceived as a success. Also, the attendees need to have enough room and personal space.

If you are giving a presentation, make sure that the design of the presentation itself also reflects the brand and the values of the company. It maybe doesn’t seem so important, but it will send a certain message and leave an impression. It is the little things that count.

6. Technology

Most likely you will have to use technology at the meeting, so make sure that the internet connection is flawless and fast, that the projectors are working without any problems. In a modern company, high-tech equipment should be top-notch! It is hard to completely prevent technical issues from occurring, but you can try to do your best to reduce the likelihood of technical surprises. Just take the time to test everything in advance.

7. Crisis management

At some point problems will arise in any company and it is hard to prevent that. Tensions even among colleagues are a common issue, especially in challenging and stressful times. That is just the way things are! Corporate meetings can help to smooth that over and to straighten bonds among employees. Thus, today’s businesses are investing in crisis management and this pays off.

8. Artificial intelligence (AI)

AI technology is being used a lot in meetings and it has become one of the most important communication technologies. But what exactly are we talking about when we mention AI technology in meetings? Artificial intelligence helps to record the meetings, it transcribes them and makes it possible to edit those recordings (to make sure that everything is correct or delete unnecessary parts of the meeting). This way the quality of the meeting is improved, its scope is widened and communication is much more effective. You should check out Gglot and all the possibilities Gglot offers in the field of transcribing. You can gain a lot out of it. Maybe a colleague came up with a great idea during your meeting’s brainstorm session, or perhaps some employees couldn’t attend the meeting. Whatever the reason, transcriptions of meetings allows employees to catch up and stay informed. Also, make sure to send out a copy of the transcript not just to the employees who missed the meeting, but to everyone who attended the meeting as well. That way they can also go back to transcriptions and see if they have overlooked any interesting ideas that can improve business.

Choose the transcription services of Gglot and you will have on paper everything that has been said in a meeting.

9. Online meetings

One huge change that we have to adjust to this year is moving our corporate meetings online, to new (digital) environments. As online meetings are a must in 2020, high-tech needs to be part of our ways to communicate. There are many tools which can simplify and improve online meetings. The key is figuring out which of these tools is right for you. But be careful and don’t overdo it. Remember: having a lot of features is great, but if online meeting attendees can’t figure out how to join the meeting because everything is packed with features, you might end up being alone! There are also other things you should take into consideration while organizing a virtual meeting: audio and video quality (this is of utmost importance), screen sharing (also a must have, especially if the meeting includes a presentation), chat (which makes communication possible, without really interrupting the flow of the meeting), multi-device support (for example, a mobile versions of a web conferencing software) etc. Many of those tools are free, but for some tools you will have to pay. Make sure to inform yourself about the different possibilities, chose the ones that are user friendly and make your online meeting more interesting and more powerful.

10. Ask for feedback

It is very important to find ways to always make the meetings more valuable for everyone included. How to organize better corporate meetings? One way is to ask the attendees what they thought about a meeting and try learn something out of their answers. Keep everything that was good and change the things that weren’t. A simple feedback survey is a great way to collect information about the meeting and if you make it anonymous you might get more sincere results. Hearing what attendees think may just give you some ideas on how you can make future meetings even more inclusive and productive for everyone.

If you get informed and if you use the right tools you can easily hold an interesting meeting. Try out our tips, plan and structure the meeting, don’t make it too long, communicate with your attendees, think about different possibilities that new technology can offer to your company, try to be creative and ask for feedback. Meetings really don’t have to be boring! They can be juicy, inspiring and productive.