We all know the stress and pressure. It’s 5pm on a Friday afternoon, it’s the last meeting of the week before the long-awaited weekend. And you have been given the responsibility of minute-taking the whole meeting.
You need to stay utterly focused and alert to everything being said and make sure you make the relevant notes without missing out any major details. That might be doable if the meeting is a small one. But what if it’s a huge company-wide (or bigger) meeting with hundreds of people and continuous discussions? This may be the time to get some professional help – and we recommend you check out Global Lingo. Working on an international scale, Global Lingo takes minutes in meetings, no matter the sector or complexity of the topic or process.
So why does minute taking matter?
Minute taking is an effective and invaluable method of documenting meetings and keeping them on record for any future purposes. They offer a lot of great benefits such as; potential legal protection, measuring business progress, providing a needed structure to business ideas, and helping inspire a plan of action for those ideas.
On a lesser and simpler scale, taking meeting minutes allow employees to have reminder aids and make note of any agreed outcomes for future references. That is why it is very important to invest in and ensure you have an effective minute taking service or writer on hand.
Here are some essential and effective tips to keep in mind when it comes to effective minute taking within your business.
Good listening skills
This may seem like a fairly obvious one but the minute taker needs to have immaculate listening skills and make sure not to miss out (or accidentally fall asleep) on any vital information.
Be assertive and confident
It’s natural to miss a point or two due to the speed of people’s speech in conversation. The minute taker needs to be assertive enough and have the confidence to speak up when they’ve missed something important that was said.
Be organised
A good minute taker has done their homework by reading up on the meeting agenda, as well as reading any notes and minutes taken in the previous meeting. This gives them an idea of what is to be spoken about and feel more prepared. Bringing all the right tools and equipment, such as pens, paper, highlighter and laptop is also very important.
Make sure the minutes are readable
This is important, especially if minutes are being shared around the office to other colleagues and employees. Minutes need to be legible and make sense for others to understand, especially if they were not able to attend the meeting in person.
Use the correct grammar
Most minute taking is recommended to be written in third person to read as past tense. Another time-saving tool is using initials instead of full names, but this is very much down to preference.
