Navigate meetings

As an administrative professional, setting up for a small or even large meeting will be our responsibility at some point. I’m going to share with you several tips to help you have a successful meeting. Always book the meeting room or location right away. Next, meet with your executive early on to see who should participate in the meeting. After you have met with your executive, send an invite that includes meeting location, start time, end time, and any other key details about the event. For the meeting room itself, you’ll want to have the following. Name tents. This allows people to easily learn everyone’s name. It also allows the speaker to know who they’re addressing if they need to call on someone or they ask a question. You can also assign seats based on the names, especially if you want people to interact with others who may not be in their departments. Have a notepad and pen at each place to allow people a chance to jot down notes from the meeting. Place bottled water at each seat so you don’t have to worry about people getting up during the meeting to get beverages. Have coffee, tea, and other beverages in the room towards the back so when people come into the meeting, they can grab a cup before the meeting starts. Schedule a break in the morning, lunch, then afternoon. Not only does this give attendees a brain break, this allows for the room to be tidied up throughout the day. Refresh the coffee and water during the breaks. This provides a regular time for you to keep everything fresh and people won’t leave the meeting to get beverages. If the meeting will be more than one day, at the end of the day you can tidy the room and prepare for the next day. You can put out fresh pads of paper, pens, water, etc. You’ll want to have a nice printed agenda for each person. You can lay this out ahead of time so you won’t have to worry about it the next morning. Be sure you have the full list of attendees for your executive along with everyone’s arrivals and departures. If you have a large meeting, look into group transportation. This helps everyone arrive on time to the meeting with minimal confusion. Make things easy for lunch by having meals ordered in advanced. This helps keep things moving along and on time. Having lunch at a restaurant or offsite can be time consuming and delay the start of the meeting. For dinner, consider picking a restaurant that will allow you to use a preset menu. This ensures the dinner won’t be several hours long. The more preparation you do for the meetings in advance, the easier and less stressful it will be for you and the smoother it will run for your executive.