September is wrapping up, and many of us are settling into new routines at home, school, and work. In an earlier issue this year, we explored retreat-type team gatherings, however, we often receive questions on how to maximize the value of standing meetings, those recurring weekly or monthly meetings that, depending on your role, make up a significant part of how managers spend their workweek. 

Team gatherings, sometimes referred to as team retreats, extend beyond the day-to-day work tasks and team check-ins often utilized by supervisors. Now is an especially important time for leaders to emphasize the human aspects of work and offer options for team members to connect with each other.

By now, most of us have become comfortable with virtual meetings. So comfortable that we’ve found grace and humor when our most profound thoughts are orated on mute and are unbothered by talking to or staring at a still photo of a colleague instead of their actual face. But with many more faculty and staff on campus, we’ll need to learn to become comfortable with hybrid meetings. A meeting is considered “hybrid” when two or more people are physically located together and one or more people are connected to the meeting virtually. 

Technology seems to somehow both simplify life and make it far more complicated, and working from home has shown a spotlight on this. One of the biggest adjustments to the way we work is how we meet now. Video meetings are a valuable way to connect with colleagues, but high volumes of virtual meetings can contribute to overstimulation, burnout, and lack of work time for important projects.