- What makes team meetings so important for the overall operation and atmosphere of the salon?
Team meetings are vital for effective management and communication. Properly run meetings save time, increase motivation, improve productivity and solve problems. Meetings can create new ideas and achieve company ‘buy-in’. Well run team meetings can diffuse conflict in a what that emails and written communications can’t.
- How often should they be conducted?
Even if it is difficult to justify the time, hold regular meetings. Plan, run and follow up meetings properly and they will repay the cost many times over because there is no substitute for physical face-to-face meetings. Run team meetings to manage teams and situations, to achieve salon objectives quicker, easier and at less cost. Well-run meetings make people happier and more productive. Badly run meetings waste time, money and resources and are worse than having no meeting at all.
- Before every meeting, should managers/owners have an agenda?
Always have an agenda and use this as the planning tool. Circulate the agenda in advance, allowing the team to prepare. Run the meeting – keep control, agree outcomes, actions and responsibilities, and take notes. Circulate the notes. Follow up on agreed actions and responsibilities.
There are many reasons to have salon meetings on a regular basis, such as: Training, giving information, generating new ideas, planning, getting clients feedback, solving problems, performance reporting, setting targets, making decisions, team building and motivation. To avoid boredom, vary your salon meetings.
- Running the meeting:
The key to successful salon meetings is keeping control. You achieve this by sticking to the agenda, managing the relationships and personalities, and concentrating on outcomes. Meetings simply must have a purpose. Every item must have a purpose. Remind yourself and the team of the required outcomes and steer towards making progress.
Always watch how staff are behaving in meetings – look out for signs of tiredness, exasperation, confusion, boredom and take necessary action. As much as possible, stick to the agenda and if things get too serious or heavy, swap to a team game or light-hearted exercise.
