Why face to face meetings matter in the workplace

Covid created a global digital environment whereby working from home, Zoom calls and Microsoft Teams were the norm. However, many companies now feel the need to increase face to face business communication to increase productivity. But are face-to-face meetings still important? This article aims to discuss the benefits of face-to-face communication and why it is still important even in today’s digital world.

Many meetings are considered by employees to be a waste of time and arguably many are. But this doesn’t mean we should eliminate face-to-face communication from our world. A well organised meeting can in fact save your company time and money and showing your face to a client or work colleague, away from the backdrop of your kitchen or living room, can help build and maintain important relationships.

Below you will find benefits of face-to-face meetings:

1. Face to face communication is important for building strong relationships

Meeting in person demonstrates that you value the other person’s time and business. If you can go to the effort of getting smartly dressed and being on time, you are clearly a dedicated and motivated individual. It shows the client that they are important to you and the meeting topic in question is worth valuable time.

Face to face communication also allows you to better read hand gestures, body language and facial expressions. Often things can be misinterpreted when on a video chat and especially over email or instant messages! Meeting face to face enables you to properly read the room.

2. Face to face meetings are important for loyalty and trust

Face to face meetings with clients and customers will increase the emotional relationship and will help build loyalty. As humans, we naturally want to meet and interact with the people we are doing business with. Especially at the beginning of a client relationship, where the trust has not yet been established.

Lost language is a problem you will find if you solely rely on technology for communication. Body language, eye contact and tone of voice are immensely important in establishing a loyal client and this is lost when you are only communicating through email.

3. Face to face meetings are more focused and productive

Properly organised and structured face to face meetings are more productive than video conferencing, a phone call or email chains.

Virtual meetings are great because they can be more convenient, but they can also be more awkward. It is more difficult to mind map ideas within the company and have in-depth discussions. A large number of people also admit to browsing social media to pass the time when on audio-only conference calls.

It is also more tempting to browse text messages or social media profiles when you are on a virtual call. Face to face communication means that the temptation of checking your phone is eliminated.

4. Face to face meetings clearly communicate goals

Another reason why face to face meetings are still so important is that it is much easier to communicate goals and objectives. This is because we can easily read facial expressions and body language. The conversations we have in person are often deemed to be more credible and beneficial than those undertaken via technology.

With face-to-face meetings, discussion is usually more to the point, meaning that the conversation will flow a lot more naturally. This enables us to be clearer with our objectives, encourage greater ideas and lead to more opportunities for the business.

Here at Open Space, our complimentary meeting room for tenants creates a space where face to face meetings can be facilitated in order to increase productivity, maintain professionalism and benefit businesses.