MEMORANDUM
To: CEO
From: Employee
Date: Oct 23, 2013
RE: Effective meetings system in Estee Lauder Company
Proposal
In Estee Lauder Company (China), meetings play a really important role in daily operation. However, do we have a highly efficient meeting system? In our company, employees are accustomed to spend lots of time in meetings everyday; however, the frequency of meetings is so high and the duration is so long that it seriously reduces the efficiency of our company.
If we keep having the meeting system like this, we not only make our employees very tired and inefficient, but also in danger of losing some potential opportunities.
There are several reasons for improving our meeting system. First of all, it wastes lots of precious time. Lots of employees complained that if they have meetings in a day, they have to work overtime to complete their own jobs. Preparing meetings also need lots of support from various people, which takes much time. Second, it increases the company’s cost. The extra labor time, the more facilities to support meetings and the increasing use of resources such as paper are all needed much more money. What’s more, it hurts employees from the psychological perspective. Employees devote so much energy in the meetings that the high frequency and long duration make them feel really tired. Besides the meetings, they still have lots of work to do. Last month, we have some employees quitted due to the unbearable burden. Finally, it will make the company have time-management problem in the long term. When people accustomed to the inefficient working style in meetings, they may bring this bad habit to their daily work. As one of the largest cosmetic companies in the world, we should conduct a new meeting system with high efficiency to meet more and more challenges in the future.
I would like to propose a project to develop a plan that give both employees and managers specific skills and training to change the meeting system in Estee Lauder Company. Specifically, the proposal will focus on increasing productivity and reducing the frequency of meetings.
Rationale
Meeting is the most useful tool for employees to involve in the topics and projects, share their thoughts and work together. From the broad side, good meetings will promote the development of the whole company. In specific, a highly effective meeting may reduce the pressure of employees and give them more confidence and sense of belonging. According to the research, ordinary employees in China spend six hours in meetings every week; however, in our company, the average meeting time is 10 hours per week. Therefore, a well-organized improvement plan for the meeting system is quite urgent and significant to the Estee Lauder Company.
Research Plan
I envision five stages to this project:
(1) Do some research to collect some basic data and information about meetings in the Estee Lauder Company, including:
The average duration and frequency of meetings
The general processes and average weight of useful information in meetings
General classification of meetings
(2) Interviewing both managers and employees to know their opinions of meetings, this will include:
Interviews with employees to know their perspectives on which kind of meetings or which part of a meeting is unnecessary.
Interviews with managers to understand who make the rules of meetings and how the current meeting system forming.