What is a staff meeting?

What is a staff meeting? 

This is a chance for you to bring everyone that works for you together. That could be to discuss a project, conduct employee reviews or have a catch-up.  

Staff meetings can happen regularly or not and come in lots of different shapes and sizes. In business, one of the most common reasons for staff meetings is to review projects and ensure everything is going to plan, talk through blockers and air any concerns. 

How often that happens depends mostly on the type of project you’ve got at hand, the company size and your current goals. For instance, a tech startup with limited employees will find it easier to meet often compared to a business with 500 people per department.

In your staff meetings, regardless of size, be sure to create a positive atmosphere – that’s how you’ll get the most out of everyone and encourage them to talk openly.

Before you start your meeting, make an agenda that details what needs to be discussed. If you’re meeting regularly this can be a standing agenda that covers important updates. Planning the format, goals and scope of your discussion will help you understand the value it provides. It can also help you keep everything on track and not deviate too far from each topic.

A successful staff meeting will need someone to chair it - either you or someone you appoint. Ensure if it’s not you, it’s someone who can facilitate conversation, keep the meeting focused and give everyone a chance to speak.

You might not always need all your staff in every meeting, so make sure the meeting purpose is clear so people can skip it if they don’t have anything to bring. Ask your team if they want to prepare anything in advance and give them a chance to lead conversations, share significant updates, offer proposals and decide on action items.

Be sure to ask for feedback regularly so you can continually refine the meetings and make them productive. There’s no point in meeting if no one is getting anything from it.

How do you schedule your staff meeting? 

No matter how many staff you have, it can often seem impossible to get them all together. Doodle makes it easy. 

Group Poll lets you pull your team together in a matter of minutes - regularly or as a one-off. Simply select the range of times you’re free and send it to those you need. They’ll decide what works for them and you’ll have a time to meet. 

A Doodle Professional Teams plan makes it easier for your staff to automate scheduling. You can add your own branding to their meeting invites, get rid of ads and decide what video conferencing tool they use. Plus, with Admin Console, you can pull reports to see how many meetings they’re having.

Doodle makes it easy for your staff to meet and for you to manage them. No email back and forth, just more free time for you to focus on more important things. Try it for free today.