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How can you use a shift start meeting to get your day off to a great start?

Shift start meetings or toolbox meetings are a great opportunity for you to get the shift off to a good start and get your team members ready to contribute and achieve their goals.

You’ve likely seen both less effective shift start meetings and more effective ones. To brush off these meetings is to give up a tremendous opportunity, again, to get your team ready, to work and contribute to a successful day.

Shift start meetings can be effective in encouraging your team to have a successful day. Embrace the power of shift start meetings. Share on X

Use these tips to make your shift start meetings even more effective going forward:

  1. Start and end with positives.

Start with a positive. An observation from the previous shift, or some good news from the company. Perhaps a team member has achieved a milestone or anniversary. Acknowledge that. If your meeting is negative, your team will start their shift in a foul mood instead of being productive. Begin and end with positives.

  1. Maintain your energy in the meeting.

If you lead the meeting with low energy, it is going to set a low energy standard for your team as they head into their workday. Do not worry about their reaction in the meeting, because sometimes they are going to try to be “cool” and not show any real enthusiasm for what you are saying. Do not let that deter you.

Keep your energy up during the discussion. These meetings are supposed to be fast paced and you should move through those agenda items fairly quickly.

  1. Close with a call to action.

A call to action gives your team a final message at the end of the meeting to launch them into their workday. Send your team off with, “Hey guys, let’s focus on quality today,” or “Remember, look out for each other. Let’s be safe out there.”

You can even experiment with different calls to action, because your actions as a leader do set the tone and the example for your team to follow.

When you have learned to embrace the power of these meetings and setting the tone for your work group, you are going to want to work on other leadership attributes. We look forward to being your partners in leadership development.