Meetings can seem to overtake your day. The hours spent per week in meetings can be staggering, especially for managers. Research shows that the average employee spends 6 hours a week in meetings, while a manager spends over 24 hours a week in meetings. We all know from experience the full-range of experiences held in meetings, from the manager who loves to hear his own voice, to the non-communicative manager who asks little, and shares less, to the manager who uses meetings as an extended lunch break, to the other manager who rarely holds them and often has employees confused as to what needs to take place. So why not get rid of meetings altogether? Well the truth is that they are essential for coming up with collaborative ideas and less autocratic decision making. The question then is how can meetings be more efficient? We believe that market research online communities are the solution.
One way for meetings to become more effective is to create small groups using your market research online community. Before the meeting you can send off some quick surveys to gather input and follow up with group discussions to examine these concepts in more detail. With invitation rules you can decide who is invited to specific discussions and surveys. You can also share documents within these private groups and ensure that everyone within the group has access and that your material is secure. The manager can post about the goal of the discussion and allowing for team members to add their feedback, share files, and have the data all in one place.
Using the email campaign tool you can include the link to the survey and discussion as well as clearly state the purpose of the discussion you are creating and what is expected for the group members. These are some keys to remember when creating a group project, meeting or discussion:
Everyone invited should know what the meeting is about.
Everyone should know the outcome the meeting is set out to achieve.
There should be time for members to prepare for the meeting.
By using insight communities to create topics for the company to tackle you allow members a place to feel comfortable sharing their ideas. The community also allows accessibility to those who are busy with other projects. The information is also stored in one local secure location with the ability to limit access to only those invited. If you would like to find out how our MROC software can help with engagement in your workplace and reduce meetings please do not hesitate to contact us.
To learn more about what Insightrix Communities has been up to, check us out on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn!
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