Get me to the meeting on time.

[JonPayne]

Online or offline, it’s hard to get everyone to arrive on time for internal meetings. The best leaders know this is essential to make the most of your time together.  What’s the best incentive to get people in the room on time, every time?

*To learn more about this, check out the Maintaining Alignment With Smarketing Meetings lesson via HubSpot Academy. 

[JonPayne]

Thanks for your insight, Shannon! Strong agree that inclusivity and time of day are absolute essentials 👍

[FKhadraoui]

Early birds catch the warm.....Be on time and leave late that s my motto 

[NitinMeta]

Whats worked to build excitement is to have a practice to 'make the first 5mins the most interesting'...topics like key announcements, news, industry trends and achievers accomplishments...and even periodically with an element of surprise to have give aways like special company branded goodies that can be shipped later....all in first 5mins.

Another way that HR teams fancy is to have punctuality as a KPI that is evaluated and scored for in appraisals.

[JonPayne]

Loving the use of both the carrot and the stick in your suggestion, Nitin! Great ideas, both of them!

[DHeron]

make the meetings 15 mins long

[JonPayne]

The simplicity of your answer is challenging @DHeron! Pretty sure I can't make all meetings that short but you've inspired me to take a look at my diary and chop down some more regular meetings to 15 mins. Thanks!

[Guy3]

Inform all, that they have to prepare for the meeting, talking about their painpoint, brainstorming solutions, establishing processes. When all the people feel they are going to participate, share, be heard and contribute, they will feel accountable and more responsible. and Believe me they would be at time. 

[SRCHAUDHURI]

I guess, keeping a record of on time participants and late comers and incentivising the more disciplined participants by sending them a thank you note by the meeting organiser via an email, marking all the other participants, once a month, will help people modify their behaviour.

[fcommunicatio]

Very good 

[UDAS24]

The wonderful Meri Williams once told me that the best way to get ANYONE into a meeting on time is to wander through the office with warm pastries 10 minutes before it’s due to start. 

[EPitlick]

When is zoom going to add smell? 😆

[CDibben]

I'd be there in seconds @UDAS24 

[LuisUlcueCampo]

We all are kind of emotional about something and we reason out sometimes, so explaining to them that you have other meetings to attend and tasks to perform might help. They'll also be "free" and will go and do what they have to.

Predicting how long a meeting will take to go thorugh it's kind of hard, but what I do when I'm teaching is to plan out my lesson and think of how talkative learners are so I can leave some room for questions that may come up from them.

[CDibben]

Appealing to the emotional side is a good tactic @LuisUlcueCampo. To end meetings on time, I like to:

- Stay on top of conversations which I notice are dragging the meeting in the wrong direction

- Prioritise agenda items in terms of importance, that way if we run out of time and need a hard stop, the most important bits have already been discussed

- Remind the team to be respectful of people's time so that everyone remains focused throughout and don't distract

[JonPayne]

I've just realised these are all tactics you use very subtly on me! Thanks for being so gentle with me!

[MMUNTZ]

Yes, starting meetings on time will set the habit for attendees that they can count on my meetings starting on time and ending on time.

[JonPayne]

Ending meetings on time is a great tip and a habit the best managers seem to have but I find it really tough 😥 Any tips on how to stop my meetings running over @MMUNTZ? 🙏

[MMUNTZ]

I know it can be tough to end on time.

Try sending out an agenda with the topics of conversation and the allotted time in the meeting for that topic.
I send this out a few days ahead of time.

Restate the purpose of the meeting at the beginning of the meeting so that all are reminded of purpose:
Is it an overview
Is it a fact finding mission
Is it a whiteboarding focus group

Thank them for their time and add that you understand they are all very busy.

Reel in one off conversations to keep on point of your meeting
Request emails or phone calls to discuss topics in depth or schedule.


Hope that helps.

[CDibben]

I like to think of myself as a pro reeling in those conversations which go off on a tangent @MMUNTZ 😂 Having the timings for the agenda is a really good way to make sure you're on track throughout - great tip!

[CDibben]

Totally agree with approach! 🙌

[CDibben]

My tip for starting Zoom meetings on time is simply to start Zoom meetings on time.

If you wait for latecomers, you're then setting expectations that you will wait for them when they are late in future. If the meeting starts at 9am, I'm ready to go at 9am and if they come in five minutes late and miss some valuable content, well - that's a lesson learned for next time! 😂