I was told off for taking Verbatim meeting Minutes.

[Oblomov]

I have done accounts for 20 years. My new job, for a small business, I was also asked to do HR, which I had never done before. They have an HR consultant, that I run all my letters, questions past, she okays all my work, before I present it to Director. I do offer letters, contracts. I have been asked to sit in on meetings.

Then I was asked to do minutes. Of a particualrly difficult meeting.

I am not a trained secretary and do not do shorthand.
I know that minutes are supposed to be about the salient points, and agreed actions. However, they are also supposed to be an actual and factual record of what has actually been said.

My last job, I had to go to meetings as an employee. These were recorded. I was given minutes - a dictation of it, word-for-word, verbatim, record.

The lady who previously took minutes for my present company, dressed them up, all flowery, and people have said they bore no resemblance to the meeting they actually attended.

So I wrote the minutes. as verbatim as i could.
And I included poitns , verbatim, where I thougt it was important to record what someone had actually said. The language that they, and only they would use.

For example, the woman said she "had really been struggling". Thats she appreciated that she nneed to "up the anti". It required "banging on a few more doors".
So, I included those exact words, to personalise it.

Now this is speak that someone actually uses. Rather than a professional letter writing style, of say a dismissal letter where you use professional wording and recognised phrases :

"given the circumstances, a decision was reached that ......"

When I presented my minutes. They were literally scoffed at. I was told they were too literal and needed to be totally re-written.

If they wanted Jack-anory, then maybe they should have not asked me to do it, but written their own fluffy version , after wards, of what they wanted to pretend had hapened.

Jokes were made about my BA and MA , how did I get those, with no 'presenting' skills, and I felt a right twit and totally humiliated.

What do you think?

[YoniConnect]

In my role I take minutes of various types of meetings. For general committee meetings, I formalise them and paraphrase, and I also move the order around to make them more logical. These minutes are a reminder of the salient points of the meeting, and to assign actions.

In "difficult" HR mtgs I do as you do, and try to record word for word - if things get difficult (tribunal / union reps involved) then it is really important to have both the individual and manager's comments recorded accurately. I agree with other posters - keep a copy of your minutes, if only to cover your back if the situation goes belly-up in the future.

YADNBU

[NorthernLurker]

I do the same as Yoni. In HR meetings I would record the exact terms used. In the general meeting minutes I take I go for broader terms and descriptions and only explicitly document who said what when it's key to future actions. At a recent meeting 4 or 5 of my colleagues had a pretty complex and strongly felt discussion but it didn't produce any different actions and wasn't going to be something that you'd ever need to say who and said what. So I just summed it up as the meeting had a vigourous discussion surrounding x,y and z.

[srsanford]

Many "committees" want the minutes to be a total misrepresentation of the meeting!
parish Councils are a case in point!
one council decided that there were to be no more "ransom strips"' but this was not minuted by a secretary and chairman who were against a planning application.
The meeting should be recorded (Marantzt 660) and the file saved on backup computers

Steve Sanford

[srsanford]

Many NHS tribunals have "minutes" that are edited by the Chairman and totally misrepresnt the actual words spoken. Again, you should record the meeting, and correct the minutes before they "accept them as a true and accurate record"

[EBearhug]

My degrees have meant I can take pretty much verbatim notes from meetings, and in some meetings I do - it can be very useful, especially in difficult meetings. However, when I've been writing minutes, I may well condense it down to something like, "After some discussion, it was decided that..." Sometimes I might cover the main points, so there's a record that particular options were considered before the decision was reached.

However, it would have been far more professional to say something like, "You've clearly put a lot of work into this, but actually, we don't need that much detail in the minutes. Here's a couple of examples of old ones, so can you take a look at those, and do it more in that style next time?" Laughing at your qualifications is unnecessarily personal and rude. They absolutely shouldn't have humiliated you, and even if you didn't produce what was wanted, that's not how it should have been dealt with. I would raise this with my manager, if I were you, but then I can be quite bolshy these days.

(HR meetings at ours quite often get recorded, but that can only happen if everyone involved agrees to being recorded.)

[FunkyBoldRibena]

Yes, I agree that disciplinary meeting minutes should be verbatim. As in what each person said. Then they should be refined and edited upon typing to show the company in the best light, as it's the company you work for. If the verbatim minutes do not show the company in the best light, then it is no wonder that the boss was upset.

[Unexpected]

Funkyboldribena the purpose of Minutes from a disciplinary meeting is to present the facts, not to show the company in the best possible light! If a company has behaved incorrectly, this has to be recorded, rather than what should have happened or how the company would like to pretend it happened!

[DippyEggNSolders]

How to take this forward?

The general consensus here is you're right and they're wrong.

Have you got a good relationship with the HR consultant? If so, I suggest you call her and discuss the situation you've been put in. IMO, if she's good at her job she will back you all the way. You can explain to her that the Directors should receive that feedback but you feel as thought they've shot you down about it all, and could she give them honest feedback about the minutes.

Just trying to think of ways you can approach this as I don't think you deserve to be humiliated in the workplace for doing something, which in my, and other [HR] people's experience was right.

I've gone as close to verbatim as I can in disciplinaries, grievances and appeals, even writing down emotions too (ie joe blogs bangs desk, Jane does cries, adjournment offered but refused).

[KnackeredCow]

OK, disclaimer here I haven't read the whole thread but...

I am currently taking my ex-employer to ET.

I knew the minutes of my appeal meeting would be "massaged" and so I recorded it on my iPhone. This was for my personal use as there wasn't a single member of staff brave enough to be my companion (and I wasn't a union member).

Subsequently, three members of my team have resigned. Two of whom are giving evidence for me, and the third is likely to. My solicitor is shocked I have so many witnesses.

It appears that my recording, because it was for personal use, will be admissable. An ET is not a criminal court so it is at discretion of the Judge.

This is becoming more common and so it is imperative that your minutes are as accurate as possible, regardless of any pressure on you to "massage" them.

[YoureBeingASillyBilly]

This is an old thread.