Tips to Engage Employees in Team Meetings

If you work in an organisation, then meetings are probably something that you don’t look forward to, especially the ones in the morning. However, whatever you might think, at the end of the day, meetings are vital for a company to function.

By sharing information, goals can be achieved quicker, and customers can be kept happy. Not just the customers, but meetings are also important to the teams working across departments for a project. It’s a place that’s crucial to team building and decision making.

Most teams dread meetings mostly because they tend to become dull after some time. That’s why it’s important to breathe life into them with team building activities. Even if it’s a call with the offshore team, you can find several team building activities for conference calls that you can do.

Let’s look at some team meeting energisers through which you can change how they are done in your organisation –

Have icebreaking sessions to start a meeting

Don’t dive straight into the meeting unless the situation calls for it. Often, it won’t. Set aside a few minutes where you can ask the attendees to talk about something interesting they did in the last few days or weeks.

Funny incidents are the best way to break the ice and get everyone comfortable and engaged. You can put a fun twist to it by throwing a ball to random attendees and tell the catcher to start. Sometimes someone might miss the ball that can lead to folks further easing into the meeting.

Organise team-building games

Take a break and play some fun games to keep things interesting. Sometimes meetings can run for hours and after some time, even the most disciplined mind will begin to wander. Have fun games like “Egg Drop”, “Blind Drawing”, and “The Mine Field” that will bring everyone’s attention back to the meeting and afford everyone a short break as well. These games are very easy and can be played without extensive preparation.

Celebrate the wins however small

Let’s be honest here. People love praise. Even more so when it comes from their boss or peers. Start your meetings by congratulating folks responsible for a win however small it may be. Another way to do this if would be online games for remote teams that have played a crucial role in project completions. This way you can make the entire meeting a fun session, and also get some work done at the end of it.

Set some fun locations

Meetings in the same old boardroom all the time gets a bit stifling. If there are a lot of people in the meeting and you haven’t been able to procure a large enough room, change it. There are no rules against location as long as the work gets done, and important decisions are made. One can take a page out of a mobile game developer “Genera Games” where a lot of meetings take place on the basketball court while shooting hoops.

This acts as one of the best team meeting energisers out there as it helps to brainstorm while being active. You can also score major brownie points with team spirit, as it gives a major energy boost to everyone.

Get a distraction donation going

Buzzing mobile phones, people checking their messages, and folks bringing up topics irrelevant to the meeting can scuttle it before it even begins. To prevent all these distractions set up a donation jar that needs to be filled by anyone who sidetracks a meeting. It will not only help build up a positive attitude in the team, but it will also provide some fun conversations that will provide a breather to everyone in cases of extended meetings.

So the next time you call a meeting and are worried about how to keep the team energised, try out a few of these team meeting energisers listed above. Before long, people will actually look forward to your meetings.