Effective Ways of Getting Employees to Speak Up in Meetings

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Monday, 08 February 2021

While some employees are more than happy to speak up during meetings, others are less comfortable doing so. However, if you do not encourage your less vocal members of staff to speak up, you are going to end up missing out on their ideas and insights. Therefore, you need a clear strategy to get them to share their opinions. So, the next time that you hold a meeting, here are a few common strategies that you can put into practice.

Do not Allow One Person to Dominate the Discussion

There is a reason why everyone should be in the meeting room. It is not there for a single person to dominate the discussion and not give everyone that chance to speak up – and this includes yourself as well. So, when the dominant member of your team is speaking too much, do not be afraid to bring other people into the discussion as well. Doing this in a way that does not feel too rude or pushy is a great challenge, but you should certainly attempt to do so for the good of your organization as a whole.

Create Better Internal Communication

A big part of the problem may be the fact that your employees do not feel comfortable enough in front of one another – and one of the best ways of resolving this issue is with a better internal communication strategy from Simpplr. If you have put in the groundwork to create a strong team, everyone should feel confident in talking to each other. Your internal comms strategy is one that needs to be continually refreshed and updated over time to ensure that it is still useful and relevant. Otherwise, it is all too likely that it will become outdated and no longer as effective as it once was.

Ask Exact Questions

When you are asking questions, try to make them as short and to the point as possible. This way, you are going to elicit precise answers rather than long and rambling ones. Also, you should aim to direct your questions at a particular member of the team whenever this is relevant. Sure, there is a time for a general discussion as well, but there are also occasions when you need to be more direct as some people have expertise that lies in different areas than others.

Give Credit for Suggestions

Nobody likes the idea of speaking out in an environment in which they are afraid of ridicule. Therefore, you should make sure that you give people credit for making suggestions rather than shooting them down in front of everybody. Sure, there are bound to be some suggestions that are better than others, but there is no point in making your shy members of staff retreat into their shells if you can help it.

By employing a combination of these strategies, you can help to create a better meeting culture at your organization in which everyone wants to contribute.

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