“This meeting could’ve been an email.” How many times have we all thought that? Of course, in our professional work environments, meetings are necessary to keep teams aligned, whether on Zoom, over the phone, or in person. However, excessive or poorly run meetings can feel like a drain on productivity, especially when a quick email could have sufficed. The key is not eliminating meetings but making them more effective, data-driven, and purposeful.
Love Them or Hate Them, Meetings Will Always Be Essential
Some conversations will always be easier to resolve in a meeting, but you don’t need as many meetings as you think. According to Forbes, information should only be condensed to what’s necessary and delivered only to the people who need to hear it. “Reducing the number of meetings starts with being economical about the people you include in your processes.” However, even when following this rule, if the meetings aren’t productive for team members, you will start battling meeting fatigue.
Financial leaders can help teams overcome meeting fatigue by relying less on meetings and more on data. We already know that automating your AP workflow has many benefits, but one of the most significant benefits is enhanced visibility into finances through simpler access to financial data. All CFOs, Controllers, and AP Managers dream about total visibility. They want to see where the money gets stalled or lost, where the bottlenecks are, and where the time drains happen. Easy access to financial data allows leaders to know where problems have already happened and where they are about to happen.
4 Steps to Overcome Financial Team Meeting Fatigue
Since APIA is the best way for leaders to access more financial data, below are four ways to utilize data to rely less on meetings and make those you do schedule more efficient to help your teams battle meeting fatigue.
1. Make Standups and One-on-Ones Work with Data
Daily stand-ups and one-on-one check-ins are a staple in many organizations. These meetings can be highly effective – but only if they’re driven by data and not vague updates. Don’t spend your meeting time having employees discuss how they spend their time or how productive they’ve been.
As Forbes points out, “Data gives a more in-depth look at employee’s productivity, objectively telling you most of what you need to know about their progress, quality, and output.” Analytics platforms and project management tools can document real-time employee performance, eliminating the need for (subjective) productivity self-reports. Managers can use this data around priority metrics to review team or individual productivity without scheduling meetings.
When having these meetings, have team members bring specific metrics to discuss rather than offering a general status update or focusing on individual accomplishments. Be sure to keep these meetings on task, though. Forbes warns “that daily stand-ups and one-to-ones can quickly become disruptive for everyone involved, especially if the narrative for these meetings isn’t based on data.” For example, if you’re an AP team, you might want to focus on daily invoice approval rates, pending approvals, or process bottlenecks.
Here’s how data can work for you:
- Review key metrics beforehand: Have a dashboard that tracks your team’s most important KPIs (like invoices processed per day, first-pass success rates, or errors flagged).
- Use data to identify blockers: Instead of just talking about what you worked on yesterday, use the meeting to focus on areas where progress is stalled based on the data.
- Keep the focus narrow: Only discuss items causing delays or needing attention, which helps streamline the conversation and get you back to work quickly.
When you have the right data at your fingertips, these meetings become a powerful tool for problem-solving rather than a time-consuming status update.
2. Streamline Internal Communication with Analytics
Meetings aren’t always necessary if the data is available beforehand. By automating data sharing through scheduled reports and customized dashboards, you can ensure your team members stay informed without endless meetings.
With DataServ’s AP automation solution, financial leaders can set up automatic reports with dashboard links sent to relevant team members on specific days of the week. This ensures everyone stays updated without meeting in person or hopping on a Zoom call. These analytics reports highlight key metrics, like AP processor performance and payment cycle times, and provide insights into where bottlenecks might occur – making it easy to decide when a meeting is necessary or when the issue can be addressed asynchronously.
Here’s how to streamline communication with analytics:
- Automated reports: Set your system to send weekly reports summarizing invoice volumes, approval rates, or other important metrics. These reports give the team visibility without the need for constant updates.
- Use analytics for decisions, not just updates: If the data shows issues, like an unusually high number of invoices pending approval, a meeting should be called to resolve the problem. This approach helps avoid unnecessary meetings and allows for more targeted discussions.
3. Empower Teams by Reducing Micromanagement
Your employees want and deserve to be trusted. Constantly checking in on your team, especially with frequent one-on-ones or status meetings, can begin to feel like micromanagement. Rather than using meetings to check team members’ productivity, rely on the data to track real-time performance. Forbes says, “Using performance data, you can easily identify who needs assistance in what areas and offer them corresponding training materials.”
However, using data to track performance need not foster a feeling of fear or animosity between manager and employee. When you present data showing areas of needed improvement, tell your employees that you intend to help them and offer them extra support. Use those discussions to build a stronger informal relationship with your team.
Make data the focal point of your conversation rather than routine updates to empower your team and allow more autonomy. Tools like those offered by DataServ provide an objective view of financial workflows, allowing managers to see where things are moving smoothly and where intervention is needed.
Here are some ways you can empower your team through data:
- Focus on KPIs during one-on-ones: Use individual performance metrics like processed invoices per team member, error rates, or approval times to guide conversations. This allows the meeting to focus on real performance and what can be improved, not just a general update.
- Use data to build trust: Regularly sharing performance data with your team gives them insight into where they stand and what needs improvement, reducing the need for constant check-ins.
- Goal-setting with trends: Analyze how the team or individual performance has changed and use this to set future goals, fostering more productive discussions.
- Before meetings, send out a report: If you are planning a meeting, send participants an automatically generated report beforehand. This allows everyone time to review the numbers and come prepared.
4. Face-to-Face When It Matters
Sometimes, meeting in person is unavoidable, such as in high-value discussions, but not every task needs to be discussed face-to-face. For companies that value direct communication, the trick is balancing when to meet in person and when to handle things through digital channels. When it’s determined that a discussion requires in-person communication, data should be a crucial part of the conversation. The focus should be on problem-solving, using relevant data to get all parties on the same page.
Here are some ways to use your face-to-face time wisely:
- Bring the data: Whether it’s vendor performance metrics, error rates, or approval delays, in-person meetings should be informed by the numbers.
- Use the data to manage exceptions: Only schedule meetings when the data shows an issue that genuinely needs discussion. This helps you avoid unnecessary meetings and lets your team focus on the work that matters.
- Focus on actionable insights: Use in-person discussions to tackle bigger challenges that require collaboration, such as exploring long-term process improvements based on recent performance data.
- Afterward, get back to work: Once decisions have been made, ensure the team has the data they need to implement the changes effectively, reducing the need for follow-ups.
If you’re getting feedback that your team is feeling overwhelmed with meetings, odds are some of those meetings could have been emails or reports. You can automate data sharing via your AP management system to send dashboards or reports to relevant stakeholders at set times. These scheduled updates will keep everyone informed without scheduling a formal meeting.
By reducing unnecessary meetings and handling routine matters with data and automation, you can ensure that face-to-face time is spent where it adds the most value.
The Role of AP Automation in Reducing Meeting Fatigue
At the heart of these strategies is DataServ’s AP automation solution. By automating financial processes, organizations have reduced manual tasks, gained better visibility into their financial data, and made their meetings more purposeful. The system’s customizable dashboards and automatic reporting capabilities allow financial teams to access the metrics they need without holding endless meetings. Metrics like AP processor performance and payment cycle times can be tracked automatically, giving leaders real-time insights into their operations.
Instead of spending hours in status update meetings, teams can focus on resolving issues and driving progress. This not only reduces meeting fatigue but also increases productivity across the board.
How Data-Driven Insights Can Transform Meetings: What We Learned from Wiese USA
A great, real-world example of how data can reduce meeting fatigue while boosting productivity is Wiese USA’s transformation using DataServ’s AP automation. Wiese, a leader in industrial equipment, struggled with a decentralized AP process across 60 locations, leading to inefficiencies and constant back-and-forth communications to manage invoices.
By partnering with DataServ, Wiese centralized their AP process and implemented automated systems, drastically cutting down manual tasks. With the right data at their fingertips, they reduced the need for constant check-ins and status meetings. Their team was able to focus on optimizing operations instead of spending time on routine updates.
One of the key takeaways from Wiese’s experience is that meetings, like daily stand-ups, work better when you have the right data to drive them forward. Instead of draining time and energy, meetings should focus on solving blockers, not tracking down information. With tools like customizable dashboards and automated reports, teams can review real-time data at a glance, reducing unnecessary discussions and keeping everyone on the same page.
Use DataServ to Support Data-Driven Meetings for a More Efficient Workflow
Meeting fatigue is a real challenge, but it doesn’t have to be. By leveraging AP automation and data-driven insights, your financial team can minimize the need for meetings while ensuring that the ones you do hold are meaningful and productive. As seen in Wiese’s experience, having real-time access to data allows for more autonomy, better decision-making, and a more balanced approach to meetings.
The data you need to reduce meeting fatigue in an era of burnout is available with the right APIA solution. Contact DataServ to learn more about the right APIA solution for your organization.
