Introduction
Meetings helps individuals to integrate their efforts, collaborate with other colleagues for joint projects and sell their innovative ideas. The agenda of holding meetings in an organisation is to accomplish plans, ideas and vision with other individuals that cannot be achieved by a single person. The assignment below is based on Wesfarmers, a multinational company of Australia which deals with chemical, retail, fertilisers and industrial products. The assignment includes making arrangements for meetings, preparing and distributing documentation for meetings and recording and producing minutes of meetings.
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1.1 Types of meetings and their purposes
Effective meetings are the ones which help the individuals to communicate with each other to attain a profitable outcome.
Different circumstances in organisations require different types of meetings to be held.
The types of meetings held at Wesfarmers are mentioned below:
- Inaugural Meeting: This meeting is the very first meeting held in the new organisation at its inception where the president or the leader of the organisation informs the employees about the vision of the company.
- Annual General Meeting: Multinational companies like Wesfarmers need to hold an annual general meeting. These are expected to be held at-least once every year. The purpose of this meeting is to comply with legal requirements. These are held to present audited accounts, to conduct elections for directors, or appointment of new auditors.
- Extraordinary general meetings: This meeting can also be termed as emergency general meeting other than the regular AGM. These meetings are held on a short notice and urgent matters regarding the firm are discussed.
- Director/Board meetings: These are regular meetings held between the board of directors of a company. The purpose of these meetings is to manage the overall operations of the company. In addition to this, all the major decisions about the firm are taken in these meetings.
- Standing Committee: A committee is an elected group within an organisation to form to manage special cases of the company. These meetings are held on a specific time in which the committee members decide the policies needed to be followed for better management of the organisation.
1.2 Legal and Ethical requirements of meetings within an organisation
There are certain ethical and legal requirements that are required to be taken into consideration before making any arrangement of meetings. These requirements are mentioned below:
Legal Requirements:
The legal requirements that are needed to be complied by a company are mentioned below:
- Work health and safety regulations.
- Provision of Public Liability Insurance
Ethical Requirements:
Behavioural expectations of the participants and meeting protocols are covered in ethical requirements which are described below:
- Honesty
- Respect
- Confidentiality
- Accountability
Wesfarmers must comply with these requirements before setting up a meeting. Each of these practices would help the firm encourage ethical practices within the organisation. Employees will be engaged more and the firm could ensure better commitment from them. Any meeting not following the legal and ethical practices would be considered invalid by law.
1.3 Participants and requirements of a meeting along with room arrangements
It is essential for any meeting to clarify the participants expected along with there requirements. The participants and their expected requirements are mentioned below:
- Board Meetings: Along with board members, senior managers and external people specifically invited for the purpose. Boardrooms must be chosen for these meetings with oval or rectangular table.
- Annual General Meetings: Directors, shareholders and company members. Auditoriums will be best suited for these meetings.
- Formal Meetings: The attendees are the employees and managers, and documentations are required to be distributed to each member of the meeting. For these meetings, boardrooms or conference rooms are two most viable options
- Meeting with external organisations: Depending on the firm, either the managers or the board of directors are the potential participants of these meetings. Most apt options of conducting these meetings would be boardrooms of the hosting company.
Requirements of the meetings:
There are special requirements needed by the participants which would impact the timeline of the meeting. Moreover, success of meetings are dependant of these requirements.
- Equipments: Basic equipments essential for meetings are required by participants such as DVD players, projectors, microphones, effective lighting arrangements, etc. These equipments are necessary to conduct effective meetings and would encourage the creativity of the participants present in the meeting.
- Parking Facilities: Sometimes participants need instructions to reach the venue. Effective parking facilities would help them to leave their cars at a safe place and signposts would help them reach the meeting on time.
- Special Dietary Requirements: The food supplied in the meeting must be prepared with consideration to the participants health conditions. Their requirements must be duly acknowledged by the company.
- Meeting Time: Meetings must be well planned and participants must be informed prior to the meeting. In case the meetings get cancelled, the participants must get an immediate information to avoid any mismanagement and inconvenience to the attendees.
In case a participant is physically disabled, the company in that case must have facilities of slopes, elevators and wheelchairs for ease of that participant.
TASK 2
2.1 Information included in a notice of a meeting for an AGM along with the legislation
The information that is included in a notice of AGM in Wesfarmers is mentioned below:
- Minutes of the previous meeting
- Financial reports of the year including, cash-flow statements, profit and loss statements, forecasting statements, etc.
- CEO's reports regarding organisation's operations.
- Research reports of potential areas of investments.
The legislations included in Annual General Meeting:
- Under the Associations Incorporation Act, 1985 (SA), annual general meetings must be held in prescribed associations.
- Annual General Meeting must be held within eighteen months of the incorporation of the firm and after that within 5 months of the firm's financial year's end.
2.2 Agendas of a meeting
Every meeting needs an agenda as it provides a framework for the leaders of the organisations to effectively conduct a meeting. A sample agenda structure of Wesfarmers is described below:
ATTENDEES |
CEO, Managers, Employees of the organisation. |
PURPOSE OF THE MEETING |
To formulate new cost effective methods |
WELCOME |
Overview of the current position of the company in the market |
MINUTES OF PREVIOUS MEETING |
Summarising issues addressed at last meeting |
TOPICS ADDED TO THE AGENDA |
New technological equipments |
CORRESPONDENCE HANDED OUT |
Current financial reports, documentation of new potential plans. |
TOPICS UNDER DISCUSSION |
Employment of new equipments that would help to cut the cost, addressing the CSR objectives, enhancing the quality of production. |
DATE OF NEXT MEETING |
After 3 months |
2.3 Formal VS Informal Meetings
BASIS |
FORMAL MEETING |
INFORMAL MEETING |
Number of participants |
Small as well as large group of individuals |
Mostly held on a one-on-one basis or smaller groups. |
Nature of occurrence |
Held in regular intervals |
Whenever an immediate problem needs addressing. |
Agenda |
Standing agenda distributed beforehand |
Flexible agenda |
Additional Issues |
Generally room for additional issues. |
Only those issues decided prior to meeting are discussed. |
TASK 3
3.1 Template for formal meetings
MEETING MINUTES- WESFARMERS |
|
LOCATION |
Company Headquarters |
DATE |
2ndNovember, 2018 |
TIME |
10:00 a.m. |
ATTENDANCE: Managers and employees of HR team |
|
AGENDA: To review the current performance of employees |
|
ACTION ITEMS: 1. Hiring new potential employees within 3 months 2. Revive the interview process with emphasis on written tests |
|
OTHER NOTES: Introduction of effective training programs for the existing employees |
3.2 Recording minutes
It is very essential to record the matters discussed in a meeting. Minute takers in an organisation play a vital role regarding this.
Things in a meeting that should be recorded in a meeting are as follows:
- A summary of the matters addressed along with recommendations
- Issues raised at the meeting
- Who raised the issues
- A brief overview of the matters discussed in the meeting
- Action items
- Decisions taken at the end of the meeting
- Formal Motions
Things in a meeting that shouldn't be recorded in a meeting are as follows:
- Direct quotations must be avoided, along with the name
- Matters discussed that are not present in the agenda
3.3 Evaluation of meeting minutes
It is very essential for minute taker of Wesfarmers to evaluate meeting minutes before submitting for approval. These evaluation help to draw out and elaborate the main points of the meeting for the managers to understand. It is needed to effectively summarise the meeting and articulate all the important issues discussed in the meetings without any errors.
3.4 Dispatching of minutes
In Wesfarmers, it is required to dispatch meeting minutes after the meeting as soon as possible. This is essential so that follow-up action could be taken by the recipients before next meeting is conducted. These minutes can be dispatched using emails and other basic facilities like hard copies via the firm's internal mailing system.
Conclusion
Thus, it is concluded that meetings are very important to facilitate a smooth working environment of the organisation. There are different types of meetings held according to the need and the matters to be discussed. Appropriate meetings along with a well room structured and with compliance to legal requirements can help the firm to effectively address the issues and generate profitable outcomes. Agendas of the meetings must be well stated prior to the meeting to help the managers conduct the meeting in a systematic manner. The meeting minutes must be described in a detailed manner for external users to understand the details of the meetings and its outcomes clearly,