To ask what your work from home meeting formats are like?

[Maria53]

I posted a year ago when I was going mad due to daily half hour calls every morning. This has gone on for nearly a year & management are now forced to review it because so many people expressed discontent in a feedback form.

While one or two things might be discussed briefly, it has now descended into discussing Netflix, what people has for dinner and alcohol choices. Most people (like myself) find this totally banal most of the time and just want to get on with our work. Others say they like the small talk.

So now they are suggesting keeping an occasional main team call but having a shorter call with our immediate teams instead. Our manager has suggested we all give a daily update on yesterday & our plan for today. To me, this is close to micro management? Plus I rarely have my day forensically planned out first thing.

I dont really like this idea either and now they are asking for suggestions. We suggested making some calls more optional, but they weren't having that.

We have a 15 minute call first thing every morning when we give an update on what we did yesterday and our plans for today. I think this is a standard part of Agile project management which we work in.

It seems to work pretty well as we keep it focused, I would get very frustrated too if I had to listen to banal chit chat first thing every day.

We have a fortnightly call for an hour which is just for a chat over a cuppa, and it's not compulsory so I just join in if I feel like it.

I'm working from home but the team isn't. I'm their manager.
Team meeting once a week (as pre-covid). If things are heavy going I will phone into work and speak to whoever answers the phone. If all is quiet I won't speak to them other than in supervision.
They can message/call me any time.

I barely speak to my colleagues anymore! There are only 10 of us in the company and we have a meeting every couple of months for about 15 minutes. We're all responsible for our own customers / projects and expected to just get on with it, which i prefer.

We only have meetings where we specifically need to.
I have 30 mins a week with my boss to compare notes.
We have a fortnightly call on Friday lunchtime for "banalities" - it's optional.
You have my sympathy OP.
Although I will say (I work in IT) - a short daily call to iron out any issues blocking your work can be worthwhile has bee useful in the past - it's part of scrum/agile method of doing IT projects.

We went to twice a week in about July and it seems to have worked.

We have a daily stand up every morning, but we did this in the office anyway. Pre-pandemic it took 10 minutes and was purely on what happened yesterday, what's on today. Now we've extended it to 20 minutes. You can turn up 10 minutes early for a chat (not unlike being at desks in the office) but that bit is optional, then the last 10 minutes are the usual meeting.

It's really not a big deal, plus we all discussed and agreed it first (and regularly review all our meetings so we don't have too many/nobody feels isolated by too few).

We have a 1-hour team meeting (attendance encouraged unless something super urgent comes up) where our manager runs through any comms we need to know about and we each give a short update on our week and call out if we need help etc.

Then we have 30 mins on a Monday and Wednesday which is optional, and is generally a social catch up but sometimes we chat about work related stuff. 4 of our team of 7 tend to join all of these, the others opt not to and that's fine.

We have a morning call with our team to discuss workloads, but we're an enquiry dept so we do need it. It descends to general chat most days. Some days it annoys me when I'm busy, but I try and remember some people in my team are living alone, so why begrudge them ten minutes of chatting to someone?

We have a weekly Friday evening "drinks" which is purely for a gossip and a catch up.

I can see why some people find it annoying, but if you normally work in the same office and have moments to chat during the day, it's just sort of replacing that.

We have a 30 minute call twice a week which started as a team catch up but now has descended into what you describe. Our big boss stopped attending a few months ago and now most other people have as well. It’s nice if you fancy a 30 minute chat about nothing (which some of my team love and I don’t begrudge them that) but most of us don’t have the time or can’t be bothered.

When remote working started we had 3 x 30 min Zoom calls a week:

one to discuss priorities for the week and you had the opportunity to ask questions, collaborate if there was overlap etc

one for boss to cascade info from the senior meeting

one to check in and see how people are.

The third one was nice at first as I think the team were quite taken aback by lockdown and some people lived alone, so it was a good space to have a bit of social interaction. But it got taken out after remote working became more 'normal' and now it's just the two.

The meetings normally are used for their purpose, if anything we run out of time. But I do get annoyed as there a couple of team members who often seem to derail things by steering the conversation to other topics ('while you're here...'), or spending five minutes talking about something which could've taken a minute or two if they cut out the waffling and circling back. That's why we run out of time.

I think they want to strike a balance between informal and formal because some people want their first and others the latter.

I'm actually one of those people that lives alone. I don't enjoy chatting about what I ate or watched last night really over zoom. I miss just cracking on with my work. I'm part of a work social club once a month. Not everyone joins that.

I think it is partially that yes these topics come up naturally in say the kitchen, as you chat with 1 or 2 people. But I've found all manner of private things being talked about now and it's the entire team you're telling, not just a few folk.

@Maria53 I think part of it is a box ticking exercise too, companies want to show they’re trying to keep colleagues connected and so try to replicate that social aspect virtually. But you’re right, you can’t really capture the organic chit chat of bumping into someone in the canteen queue or making a coffee at the same time as someone else.

But I do also think it’s hard as some people will absolutely hate those meetings, but others may really like them and appreciate non work chat. I can’t see how they can balance between the two, unless they let people opt in/out.

I have a 15 minute call every morning with a different department (my choice if I want to join or not as not always relevant to my team).

15 minute call every mid morning with my team (so 3 of us) where we discuss anything that needs discussing and workloads for the day.

Twice weekly update calls at 30 mins with the other team leaders and our manager.

I have a video call every few weeks with the whole department and we have coffee and cake and it's more a social thing (again, totally voluntary but most people join it).

They asked for our opinions and the second someone suggested an opt in/out idea they said absolutely not.

I find it quite controlling, we are all adults.

My immediate team of 5 has an hour on Monday to discuss priorities for the week, and there is some small talk at the start which I don't mind. We then have another 30 mins later in the week which is meant to be strictly not work talk. I tolerate it once a week, but couldn't imagine every morning!
I have an hour a week 121 with my manager to talk about my priorities for the week specifically and we are trusted to get on with our projects.

Maria53, what do you feel is controlling about it?

As a PP says, it's really hard to juggle because some people will hate the video meetings and some people will really welcome them. I suppose most companies should try and find a way to separate the "work" meetings from the "informal" meetings so there's more option for people to opt-out of the informal ones if they don't like them. Or perhaps not say anything about people who keep their videos off all the time.

This is a whole new world and even though it's been a year, everyone is still finding their feet on how to manage this. I know a lot of people find it intrusive that their home can be seen, or resent being expected to dress in a certain way even though they are at home, and I get that.

But equally I think firms have a duty to keep an eye on people: when we worked in an office, your manager and colleagues would see you every day, and it would be noticeable if you were struggling somehow. Being entirely invisible at home, never on a video call - I can see how some firms would find that unsettling, and not in a purposefully controlling way. As a line manager, if I had a team member who tried to avoid all informal meetings, always had their video off etc... I don't know, I think I would be concerned that something might be up somehow.

@Maria53

The fact that you can't opt out is very frustrating!

I can't opt out of my meetings with my team as I am their leader and with us all working from home and on different shift patterns we need that 10 mins in a morning to sort the workloads out.

The coffee morning is up to us, if we don't want to do it, we don't join, no one gets told off or ostracized.

I posted a year ago when I was going mad due to daily half hour calls every morning.

Did your company foresee the pandemic and send you all home before everyone else ?

We have a weekly Team Meeting, fixed time, same day. Starts at 9.30, sometimes lasts 30mins, sometimes just over an hour and anywhere inbetween. This is for business matter / information updates

There is also the 'Coffee Stop' which is at different times on each day which people can 'drop into' if they want to, just to chat. Entirely optional. Sometimes people 'drop in' (an invitation pings up on your screen if someone starts it) because they want to ask something work related, so others then sometimes 'drop in' to help out. But there is time just for a chat about the weather or what was on TV last night, if you want to, but you don't have to go, if you don't.

We have project specific team meetings which usually have a little bit of social chat at the beginning until everyone logs in but then have a specific project related agenda.
Then we also have "social" meetings but they're totally voluntary and on a drop in when you like basis. They're organised by line management groups (which isn't always the same project teams) and we have a 30min office-wide one once a week as well.

I have a 20 minute call with my team at 9 am every day. We check in on the day's priorities, where they might need my support.

It's great for accountability and focus, especially when working remotely.

I am a line manager and have a daily call on teams to pass on messages and look at the focus. On a Friday it is more social but for me I think these meetings are important to check in on people. In the office I would be aware of people having problems or struggling through visual cues. I find it harder to get a feel for how people are feeling remotely. Plus my team are relatively new so it is good to build the team together.
Also I like to talk to people!

Daily call here as a replacement for the previous daily stand up. As someone above said, it’s the format for Agile working.

We were having a weekly meeting. I said I didn't find it useful as if I have an issue I'll Skype or email.
But I was told that for some, it was essential contact (wfh, live alone people). So accepted that even if no one had much to say.
Now it's monthly and we'll see how it goes. The first one went over time so just as well I had nothing to say. Nobody knows what me and my colleagues do. So we have Insufficient support, knowledge and advice from management as they cannot do our job. It's awkward.

The whole company has always been wfh.
Each team has a ten/twenty minute stand up with their team manager to basically just state what they're going to do today.
Once a month with the managers, manager to go over targets.
People pop onto on the random (company wide) or (team wide) chat channel during the day for random convos or ring specific people for the water cooler/netflix type moments.
And then obviously people ring each other if they need help as and when.

Daily stand-up of no more than 30 mins is a common Agile technique. Usual agenda what I did yesterday/what I'm doing today/any blockers. Works if the whole team is working towards a defined shared goal. It's not optional.

Have you reflected the question back to your managers - what is it they are hoping to get out of the meeting? What are they hoping that you get out of it?