For two years now, fatigue in online meetings has been a major concern as people spend a large part of their day on the screen in meetings.

But now that we’re going back to the office, many employees are starting to realize that online isn’t the problem, it’s often just the meetings themselves.

How do you ensure that your meetings are efficient, effective and not over the top?

Startup Daily recently sat down serial entrepreneur and investor Carl Hartmann, co-founder of Temando, Compono and Lyre’s Non-Alcoholic Spirit Co† Ashley Perkins, Commercial Master Trainer at Microsoft Australia† and Laura Warden, Head of People & Culture at Sydney VC, Folkloric Enterprisesto discover how to get the most out of managing your teams, especially when it comes to dealing with the bane of any business: meetings.

To see this discussion in action, watch Startup Daily’s free Empowering Possibilities: The Secrets of Successful Teams webinar, presented in collaboration with Windows 11 Pro Powered by the Intel VPro® platform† Here are some highlights:

The new starter test

Warden has one of the most fresh and innovative approaches, opening new eyes to see if what they do in meetings is really worth it. When one starts at Folklore, he is thrown into all the meetings and then expected to say what he thinks. The result can bring about dramatic change.

“In our onboarding program for new starters [we ask them] to provide feedback to their managers at every meeting they attend to ensure they get value and are able to add value in every meeting they attend,” she said.

“As we grow, we can rethink whether meetings are necessary for those individuals.”

And what if it’s a thumbs down?

“There are times when we’ve changed or deleted meetings based on that feedback,” Warden said.

Her advice is to review the meetings you have regularly and seek advice from everyone involved on how to make your meetings better — including whether you need them at all — in this new hybrid work model.

“I think it will be an ever-evolving process to re-evaluate how we operate in this changing environment,” she says.

“It’s so valuable to keep that in mind when looking to collaborate and get feedback from the team.”

Kill the camera

Ashley Perkins spends most of his day online, working remotely with Microsoft customers, and knows it can be difficult to be “always on.”

You’ve probably seen those viral clips of people taking their laptops to the bathroom because they’re sharing too much that no one wants to see, but the idea of ​​being constantly watched by someone while you’re in front of the camera may be confusing to some participants. make anxious.

You don’t always have to be on. Photo: AdobeStock

Perkins advises you to “mix things up”.

“When you have back-to-back meetings, it takes a long time to be in front of the camera and feel like you’re live the whole time… you don’t feel so comfortable just relaxing, said Perkins.

“You can create a lot of stress and anxiety if someone has their camera on all the time.”

His solution is simple: give people permission to turn off the camera if they are not actively participating in the debate and discussion.

“You can make participants feel more comfortable by letting them participate the way they want to, or by not being pressured to have your camera on at all times,” Perkins said.

Tackling the global office

For Carl Hartman, running a global business comes with its own challenges.

The most important lesson for anyone in a similar situation is to make sure they still have personal time blocked.

Carl Hartmann

“If you have to find a time that fits, say, the US time zone, APAC, and Europe, you really only get a few of those windows a day. And there is always someone on the short side,” he said.

“Unfortunately, there’s not much technology can do to solve that — we can’t create more hours in a day — but try to think about those overlapping collaborative hours.”

But that could mean early mornings or evenings for Australians, which can interfere with getting a family out the door to start the day, or the chance to catch up over dinner. Hartman believes in sharing your schedule and times with your team and claiming when you are unavailable.

“Besides the planning, we have also thought about letting people enclose their own time. The mistake people make is that they don’t really write things in their calendars that are personal obligations,” he said.

“That could be like going for a walk for mental health, doing some exercise, family responsibilities. You might say, ‘Hey, these hours when I’m eating with my family. Hard commitments, including sleeping – as in, “These are my non-collaborative hours, because I plan on sleeping, right?”

“Sometimes you just have to map that out for people and say what’s not so acceptable and what you’re starting to get are calendars that can overlap.

“It actually makes scheduling a little bit easier if you have that view of when people are unavailable or unavailable.”

Here’s Laura Warden from Folklore with her advice for keeping your meetings relevant from our recent chat.

Register and watch the full Empowering Possibilities webinar below:

Reinforcing Capabilities: The Secrets of Successful Teams