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 do a virtual team meeting once a fortnight where everyone updates about what they’ve been doing work wise and I give out info and updates to all
The alternate week we do a virtual coffee morning or lunch meet - social only and not compulsory
Work what’s app group good for quick queries or posting things of general interest including humour has been good for team spirit
Individual one to one supervisions are held monthly can be virtual but we also do socially distanced walking coffees weather permitting

In 2019 I had a boss who did 'catch ups' but they aren't normal in the job I have now. I never liked it.

My only regular call is 30 minutes once a week. We're invited to give updates on our projects. It's fine to say "No progress". Most of us aren't paid to work with each other and don't rely on each other to do own work, it's more like a mutual crisis support group.

That regular call is the only one I always listen to carefully; most of my calls I'm multi-tasking and only half listening. Nobody bought me a camera so I can mute & get on with other jobs unobserved.

In a different country, so WFH was shorter here. I did 30 min daily check-ins. Some days I'd be a couple of minutes late so the team of 16 could have a relaxed chat. These meetings focussed on sharing information from the meetings or calls I had. Being at home, people miss the incidental things they would hear in the office, so it was important to share what was going on and what was being discussed. They were also an opportunity for people to ask for help, either from me or other team members, and to discuss workload and possible redistribution if needed.

The team liked the meetings so much they asked for them to continue once we got back to the office. They thought twice weekly would be good, so we continued with that. My team are so fabulous. When someone is on leave we resolve backfill in our meetings and people with capacity put their hands up for different bits of the role. It's never the same people, we've all got different peak periods. It's worked so well.

As noted above it's not micromanaging. I trust my team. I need to support them. I'm hard to catch, so a dedicated time when they have my undivided attention is really important.

When lockdown started last year I was holding dailies with my team every morning, just for 15 mins or so, but I did also have a bigger team then (we sadly had to make redundancies in the summer) so it made more sense. Now I just do a weekly team meeting and individual 121s which prove more than enough. Separately I have a weekly management meeting too and a 121 with my own line manager so it feels like everything is more than covered off.

I think if you're not finding these dailies useful then chances are, some of the others aren't either. Most managers wouldn't want you to be joining something that is just a waste of your time so I too would be a bit annoyed that they've said no to opting out. WFH is different for everyone and we all need to be flexible at the moment to get the best out of each other/ourselves IMO.

Running a really complicated project right now so we have 2 x 20 minutes every day, but if we didn’t it does feel like it would fall apart! Everyone happy with the arrangement though as comms are key.
No one checks in on anyone else at other time ref: working hours or being at your desk.
So I think it’s all about context.

We have a daily huddle on zoom at 930 just to talk about what's on for the day, can last about 20 mins

@BackforGood

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.

My DH has been home since the 17th Feb due to CV19- so a year They have an Italian business and sent them all home when Italy started to lockdown.

We have a specific social catch up on a Friday afternoon where we can bring along a cuppa/coffee/wine/whatever and have a natter. We have a group chat on Teams that runs throughout the week. This has helped to focus proper meetings on the subject in hand, but because we know loneliness can be difficult in lockdown, we do encourage informal catch ups in smaller groups if that is desired. We haven't had any issues with idle chit chat taking over scheduled meetings since all this was introduced, and it seems popular.

We have a daily optional "Virtual Tea Break" which is either at 11am or 2pm depending on the day to try and make sure everyone can come to at least some of them if they want to. About 4-6 of the team of twelve usually drops in on any given day, but probably 8-10 choose to come along at some point during the week.

In terms of meetings we're actually required to attend, there's a half hour fortnightly update meeting and a monthly 1.5 to 2 hour meeting.

We don't need to get together as a group more often, because the work is mostly done individually with quite chunky tasks that take a couple of days to complete. People chat more informally with line managers as and when necessary.