5 Reasons Why Face-to-Face Meetings Are Still Important

As lockdowns across the world forced so many of us to take our meetings online, the virtual meeting has fast become a staple of national and international companies of all sizes. 

There are many business advantages to virtual meetings, especially offering the capacity to meet with great numbers of people from all parts of the globe at one time.

However, many would argue that the face-to-face meeting still trumps any virtual meeting, hands down. A survey conducted for PromoLeaf found that 72% of those asked actually prefer in-person conferences over virtual events. In this article we take a look at the reasons why this could be the case, and why face-to-face communication is still important today.

1 Easier to network

One of the biggest attractions of an in-person meeting is that they provide the opportunity for individuals with a common cause to network and get to know each other. 

Not only is this great for business as it allows people to communicate freely and dynamically with one another, batting ideas to and fro to come up with positive solutions, but this is also great for your employees and other stakeholders. 

Proper friendships have the chance to form in person in a way that they simply can’t over virtual meetings, and these friendships are often at the root of new enterprises from which your company could likely benefit.

According to ResearchGate, one study by the University of Technology Sydney found that “friendships forged at business events contribute to, respectively: the well-being of delegates, association membership levels, conference attendance, retention of personnel in the profession, successful research and professional collaborations, and creativity and innovation in the sector.” 

The ability for meeting attendees to network freely is clearly more important than we may originally have thought, and face-to-face meetings are better than virtual meetings at encouraging these alliances to form.

2 Easier to communicate clearly 

Although virtual meetings are effective as they allow for one person to talk and share ideas at a time with all other attendees, and the use of a good video camera and fast internet connection can mean that their body language also transcribes well, it is still easier to read people in person.

According to Youth Time, between 70% and 93% of all communication is non-verbal. Although facial expressions and some hand gestures might be easy to read over a video link, there are some degrees of body language that simply do not translate over online meetings.

When meeting in person in a professional environment, it is commonplace in many countries for individuals to shake hands with one another when they meet. In others they may stand a respectable distance away from one another and bow. These intricacies are missed in online meetings, failing to allow an opportunity for your staff to start more personal dialogues with the clients in attendance.

3 Easier to share ideas

Depending on your industry or the type of meeting you are attending, it might be relevant for you to attend meetings with demonstrations. 

Online meeting technology such as Microsoft Teams, Google Chat and Zoom is relatively advanced these days. Platforms can support large amounts of attendees and there are numerous features which make holding meetings online far more streamlined. 

Meeting organisers can group attendees into breakout rooms so that they can work in smaller groups on different projects before feeding back to the group, and the ability to share screens with the whole group is particularly useful for online teachers or tutors, lecturers, and other professionals sharing company data.

Aside from sharing graphs, charts and data, however, virtual meetings can prove a difficult platform from which to share some ideas, particularly those involving 3D models. 

One of the benefits of face-to-face communication is the ability to clearly show people objects and models, and allow them the opportunity to interact with them before feeding back or asking questions. Workshop spaces can prove particularly valuable assets for this style of meeting.

4 Fewer interruptions

When compared with an online, virtual meeting, another reason why face-to-face meetings are better is that they tend to endure fewer interruptions.

Nobody can be interrupted by their children in the background, mobile phones can all be conveniently switched off or turned to silent, and there are no gaps in communication due to technical issues.

Unfortunately, with meetings over the internet, all attendees need to have a reliable and fast internet connection, decent microphones and functioning cameras to have a fully optimised meeting. Even then, there is still the possibility for connection errors to occur, causing dropouts, which leave different members missing out on snippets of the meeting at a time.

As well to the increased expense of providing adequate technology for all employees, there is also the possibility that your online meetings could be breached either by hackers, or attendees allowing others in their setting to sit off-camera and watch what is being said.

It is for reasons such as these that private meeting rooms for hire prove so popular. Not only do they offer a quiet workspace where your team and potential clients can truly focus, but they even offer privacy from others within your organisation so you can discuss the topics you need to without the concern of being overheard.

5 Better for team building

Team building activities are often more interactive than simple chats. Whilst online meetings have the capacity to place individuals into small groups in breakout rooms, meetings face-to-face allow for more than one conversation to take place at one time in a more spontaneous and natural way.

Team building exercises that require participants to engage and interact with tactile objects are far easier and more productive in person, for example with card sort style activities that require a productive outcome, or team games that include some level of competition and speed.

There are numerous reasons why companies of all sizes have refused to throw out their face-to-face style meetings. They offer an aspect of socialising that is important to business, allow attendees to communicate clearly with one another for productive outcomes, and even avoid the technical issues that can come with online meetings. 

Book a suitable conference room or presentation space for your company’s next important get-together or to impress a new potential client, and reap the rewards of face-to-face communication for yourself.