Looking for an easy-to-use tool to help you keep track of the time and money spent on meetings? If the answer is yes, then trying Payscale’s free, web-based tool called Meeting Miser may spell the end of your search. This tool will calculate the cost of a meeting based on the location of the meeting, the job category of the meeting attendees, and the start and end time entered by the user. The work categories and hourly costs available in the tool are based on data uploaded to the Internet database.
Since meetings are primarily a general function, using a time and cost tool like Meeting Miser could make leaders more aware of what they are spending. However, it will not tell you if that time was actually used or not. To truly have an impact on results, leaders must determine which meetings need to be interrupted, shortened, or improved to increase productivity and reduce overall costs. Interrupting unnecessary meetings will reduce costs, but interrupting most meetings will affect productivity. The answer to reducing costs is to move the bad meetings to the good ones and the good ones to the better ones. This move can make a big difference in the amount of time and the amount of productivity required of people in meetings.
When using the Meeting Miser tool to measure the time and cost of a meeting, it is important to save time by completing key information in the tool before scheduling begins. Leaders using this tool can ask a member of the HR team to pre-load the missing company job categories and payment data into the database to have more accurate data for the area and the company, especially if the tool is to be advertised and used. all the company. It should also be noted that this tool is not an exact meeting cost because it uses a range of rates based on monthly salary or an hourly basis rather than the exact pay of meeting attendees. This tool only provides the approximate cost and actual time of a meeting based on timely button clicks. It should not be used as an accounting tool, instead consider it an indicator for estimated measurement only.
However, managers and team leaders can use the Meeting Miser tool to estimate how much their meetings are costing and how much time is spent on them. The department leadership can inform their direct reports about the tool and ask them to use it anytime they have a meeting. Also while monitoring the meeting, this tool allows users to save their meetings and produce a cost of attendance report. Armed with this information, leaders can weigh the value of meeting time versus whether or not valuable work was accomplished during the meeting. If leaders find meetings that are worthless or of low value, then they can determine if another method of communication should be used instead of holding a meeting.
The Meeting Miser tool requires little training, as it is easy to follow for most people used to working with computers. Using this information can be helpful as part of a demonstration on how to use the tool. Following the demonstration with general meeting guidelines can also be a good tool for training potential leaders. General meeting guidelines can be found in a meeting management book or compiled by searching for information about meeting management on the Internet.
The Meeting Miser tool will help both meeting leaders and attendees understand how much investment in time and money the organization is making to increase communication and work productivity. The data from the tool should be a useful measure to increase awareness of what meetings are costing the company, so that everyone can be encouraged to hold only the necessary meetings and make the ones they do hold more effective. Using this tool will show the approximate cost of meetings, but it is important to note that meetings are a very important business communication tool. For this reason, keep in mind that using the tool does not tell the leader whether the meeting was of value or not. To determine if a meeting has value; the leader should ask attendees for their opinion or review the results of the meeting evaluation. However, the best measure may be to review the written records with the proposed agenda.
If you use the agenda to measure the value of the meeting, then the leader must ensure that more than 40 percent of the agenda has been accomplished. The more completed the agenda, the more value the business meeting has. Everyone needs to make sure the ones they have are effective and not just look at costs. The effectiveness of the meeting should also be measured to make sure the meeting is worthwhile. A meeting where actual work is done will include brainstorming, problem solving, decision making, and assigning actions to take outside of the meeting.
When looking for a tool to monitor the overall costs of time and dollars spent on meetings, Meeting Miser is a good choice as you can estimate the cost of a meeting by location and job category of attendees. This tool can be used by any manager or team leader to estimate how much their meetings are costing and how much time is spent on them. It can be easily distributed to others by informing direct reports about the tool and asking them to use it during meetings. After meetings, leaders can use Meeting Miser data to weigh the value of meeting time against whether or not valuable work was accomplished during the meeting and then plan for needed meeting improvement or use other methods instead of holding a meeting if necessary. format that also fits the purpose of communication.
In conclusion, use Meeting Miser as an easy way to make leadership and meeting attendees more aware of what is being spent on meetings and how that could affect the bottom line. It should not be used as a tool to eliminate meetings; rather, leaders must determine which meetings are needed based on the overall value produced by the meetings.