What business problem did the client want to solve?
Latvian Television is a public broadcaster, a public company with limited liability. It includes Latvian public media Latvian Television, Latvian Radio and Latvian public media portal LSM.lv.
After the transition to remote work, the number of meetings in the client’s team increased rapidly. It became more and more difficult to schedule work meetings and conduct them efficiently, as employees were forced to spend the entire working day in front of a screen.
The meetings were long, without a clear structure, on several issues at once. At some point, the client concluded that more and more often, when finishing a meeting, the employees do not feel satisfied and it seems that the time was not spent effectively. Many employees admitted that this feeling occasionally occurs at the end of the working day – the whole day has been spent in meetings and the rest of the work has not progressed.
The client addressed WIN partners with the need to organize the process of meeting management so that employees could plan their work more efficiently.
What solution did we implement?
In cooperation with the client, WIN partners developed a tailor-made training program for LTV employees to improve the meeting management culture.
The goal we wanted to achieve: after each meeting, the employees have clarity about the situation, the next steps, and the result wanted. It was also important to teach the participants to evaluate the need to participate in each meeting to which they were invited. In the program, we integrated content of several WIN partners programs such as effective meeting management, business negotiations, as well as time and energy planning.
The training took place in five two-hour sessions on the following topics:
- What is the difference between an in-person meeting and an online meeting?
- How to define the purpose of the meeting and not get lost in long conversations about simple issues?
- How to delegate tasks during meetings?
- How to effectively plan your working time?
- How to renew your energy wisely?
Trainer Aldis Zauls met with participants online once a week. The participants performed practical tasks that helped to better understand the theory and provided an opportunity to try the knowledge gained in practice already during the course.
The training took place in August – September 2021, 20 LTV employees participated in it.
How does the client evaluate the project result?
Aelita Švītiņa, Head of LTV’s Personnel Department:
“After these sessions, we have concluded that it is more effective to teach employees time planning, rather than providing stress management later. Thank you very much for the meaningful presentations, and a special compliment to the trainer for inspiring the participants to change their habits. From time to time, in internal meetings, I hear colleagues refer to what they heard in the training and offer to do more efficiently.”
What are the WIN partners’ lessons after concluding this project?
- Distance learning is not a reason to reduce the proportion of practical tasks. This project has proven that motivated participants are active and engaged also in an online format.
- A valuable element of this project was the electronic handouts, which the participants studied between sessions and discussed with the coach at the next meeting.
