Book club meetings encourage engagement in your organization. This is where your book club members can share their thoughts and key takeaways from the books they’ve read.
Why have book club meetings?
Book club meetings foster new ideas and cultivate fresh insight in readers as they share their perspective on what they’ve read. Every reader sharpens the other when a variety of viewpoints are brought to the table.
Other benefits include:
Encourage interaction and engagement across all departments
A great way for members to discover the next book to read
One more way to make the program a fun and positive part of your culture
How often should meetings happen?
It’s important to strike a balance with the frequency of your meetings to maximize the potential for engagement with your employees. If they occur too often, members may feel they don’t have enough time to read or are too busy to attend. If too seldom, it could drop off their radar altogether.
We’ve found the sweet spot is to schedule your book club meetings quarterly, or every 3 months. It gives members plenty of time to read a book while also occurring frequently enough to stay on their minds throughout the year.
We recognize that every company is different, so feel free to experiment with different meeting frequencies to find what fits your organization best.
How should meetings be conducted?
Cultivating a positive, easy-going atmosphere is essential. The best book club meetings are fun, informal, and engaging.
Similar to a roundtable discussion, members take turns sharing their thoughts on the book they’ve read. There’s no need for members to prepare a presentation or stand up and give a speech. It’s simple: everyone has roughly 2-3 minutes to share with the group what they read, how they liked the book, and any key takeaways.
How To Schedule a Meeting
Hover your mouse over the gear icon in the top right corner and click Schedule a Meeting. Then fill out the details and click Schedule this meeting.
Helpful Tips
Be aware of time. Discussion is certainly encouraged, but if someone starts to get long-winded the Champion can move the conversation forward so everyone has a chance to share within the meeting time.
Champions can have a few general questions prepared to help members who may be shy or nervous about speaking, or simply don’t know what to say.
Encourage members to print off and bring their book reports with them to the meeting. They can use this as a guide when they discuss their book.
Capacity
We recommend a max of around 15 members in a meeting so it doesn’t exceed one hour. If you have more than 15 members participating in your meetings, break it up into 2 or more meetings as needed.
Not sure how many of your members will attend a meeting? Start by scheduling one meeting with a max of 15 spots; if it fills up, schedule another meeting, and so on.
Remote Workers
If some or all of your team work remotely, you can still have book club meetings! They just might look a little different. Below are a few ideas for how this could work.
Partially Remote Companies
Conference remote workers into the book club meetings through either phone or video
The Champion can set up a conference call for only the remote workers as a group
The Champion can schedule a short call with remote workers individually
If remote workers make occasional office visits, they can meet with the Champion at that time
Fully Remote Companies
Format your book club meeting however you normally would for meetings, whether that is on a conference call, Google Hangouts, Skype, GoToMeeting, etc.
What's next?
You're almost there! All the nuts and bolts are in place and you're finally ready to launch BetterBookClub for your company. Check out our next guide to learn how to onboard your team.