Meetings, conferences, briefings and awaydays

Types of meeting

Good practice can make meetings more accessible for everyone – request or suggest adjustments to the organisers

There may be several different types of meeting you may be invited to attend. These could include:

One to one, line management and supervision meetings – Most organisations have a formal performance management process, which will be covered in meetings with your supervisor. This will include how often you should meet to discuss your work with your line manager or supervisor. You can ask to meet more often than that as a reasonable adjustment.

Conference calls – Increasingly businesses are using calls to bring multiple colleagues together to discuss a particular topic or challenge. Sometimes these are run over the internet via video call, and you can see your colleagues, or they can show you documents or other information on their computer screens and vice versa. It can be difficult to know when to talk without interrupting, or to know when other people are going to talk or ask a question, but it’s the same for everyone else on the call! An agenda can help, as can having someone chair the call, who is skilled at ensuring everyone can contribute.

Team meetings – Where you meet with other members of your team – typically all those who report to your manager. The frequency of the meetings will vary, they may be daily, weekly or monthly. Companies where things change regularly tend to have more frequent and shorter meetings. Sometimes team meetings can take all day if they don’t happen all that regularly.

Leadership briefings and management meetings – Usually led by a senior member of staff at key periods – e.g. at t