The Bayt.com ‘Meetings in the Middle East Workplace’ poll, recently conducted by Bayt.com, the region’s number one job site, has revealed that employees in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) consider meetings to be a great way to make key decisions.
Meetings in MENA workplaces often have agendas distributed in advance, according to80% of respondents, and tend to start on scheduled time (according to88%).52% of respondents claim that their meetings will normally end on time, too. This is likely influenced by the fact that three quarters of respondents (76%) say that people behave appropriately during meetings, allowing them to reach consensus on key decisions.
According to73%, meetings within their company remain focused and on the right track. Further to this,45% of respondents strongly agree that the right people are often present in the meetings they attend, with another31% ‘somewhat agreeing’ with the same, leading to an easier decision-making process. In fact,78% of respondents claim that meetings are a great way to get the company to come to a good decision, and72% believe that meetings are always helpful and an effective use of time.
According to79% of respondents, key decisions are recorded and shared with meeting attendees at the end of the session, while another79% state that action items recorded during meetings have people assigned to them, who are then held responsible for carrying them out. This shows that MENA professionals record and follow-up with the execution of key decisions made during meetings.
Six out of10 (62%) respondents believe that everyone at their company contributes during meetings, even remote employees, who, according to81%, actively participate in meetings.
“The results of this Bayt.com poll show that meetings are, indeed, a good use of company time to not only make key decisions, but to ensure engagement across all employees, too. That is great. To make meetings even more effective, what we recommend is to always distribute a meeting agenda in advance, start the meeting on time, and finish the meeting on time. It is also important to invite only the right people, and to create an action list from discussion points and hold people responsible for it. This establishes meetings as a key contact point for all staff, and therefore an important part of regular corporate culture.” said Suhail Al-Masri, VP of Sales, Bayt.com. "Today corporate meetings at top organizations happen not only physically but also virtually. With Bayt.com, the region’s top employers can meet with registered job seekers physically as well as via virtual job fairs and online chat and also engage via the proprietary Bayt.com Specialties platform and online corporate interview questionnaires for key job roles. Within Bayt.com itself cross-disciplinary and cross-geographic teams from the various bayt.com MENA offices meet physically and also virtually on a regular basis to brainstorm, discuss milestones and move key projects forward on track. Open and honest communication is a key value at bayt.com and one that is heavily invested in at all layers of the organization."
Data for the Bayt.com ‘Meetings in the MENA Workplace’ poll was collected online from August12-September162014, with3,380 respondents from UAE, KSA, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain, Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Algeria, Egypt, Morocco and Tunisia.