How to conduct team meetings

In his last article Ryan Fox looked at how to plan for a successful team meeting. Here he offers tips on how to run a meeting for the best results for your business. Know what to cover Ensure you cover all aspects of performance and address issues that come up. You need to have a balance, so make sure you also celebrate the positive results and the achievements. However, don’t be afraid to also point out the weaknesses and things that need to improve on a general level without getting too specific with individuals, as these are better dealt with on a one-to-one basis. Its fine to let the facts speak for themselves on performance though, so again don’t be afraid to display everyone’s individual results on Key Performance Indicators. It’s good to talk…and listen One of the key jobs of the owner or manager is to inspire and lead but it’s also important to listen and get feedback from the team so don’t look at the team meeting as a one-way street. Have your agenda so you can keep things on track but don’t stick too rigidly to it, and don’t expect to have all the answers going into the meeting either. Be open to suggestions from the team, in fact you should actively encourage input, feedback and ideas. That way they will feel much more a part of the experience and are more likely to take ownership of the issues and carry things out. Bite-size training sessions It’s a good idea to incorporate a bite size training session into the meeting. You can vary the subject depending on what the key focus is at the time, but it could include discussing how to present retail to a client, demoing the back wash procedure or role playing consultation skills for example. Know when to run them It’s always a difficult challenge to find the right time for the team meeting so look for the days when most of the team are in but avoid Saturdays and the end of the day as these don’t work well. You may need to change the shift slightly to accommodate everyone and make it work, but that’s fine. It’s usually best to run it in the morning and book out the first hour of the day for everyone. You can either run them weekly or monthly. If you aren’t doing them regularly at the moment I would suggest starting with monthly meetings. Conclusion Don’t underestimate the importance of doing regular Team Meetings as it’s an essential part of your management tool kit. Communication in the salon is key to making things run smoothly so make the effort to plan them in, prepare what you are going to cover and run them on a regular basis. You’ll be surprised how much difference this will make to addressing day to day problems which will actually save you time and ultimately improve the quality of your service offering to clients. Ryan Fox is a hair and beauty salon consultant who improves salon performance through training and innovation. For further details visitwww.umbrellaconsulting.co.uk