4 Benefits to using a professional minute-taker

Whether it is an HR meeting, a stakeholder meeting, a board meeting, or a strategy meeting, all business meetings should document proceedings, at least on occasion. The manner in which companies decide to record meetings (e.g. via video or audio recording, email, or through minute-taking) depends on the sensitivity of the information conveyed and the need for consistency for the benefit of all attendees.

If businesses have a meeting that involves a legal or sensitive subject matter, they will usually rely on a minute taker to provide comprehensive notes to accurately capture the meeting’s events.

What is minute-taking?

A minute taker is responsible for recording all relevant notes during meetings — “minute-taking” refers to the act of recording that information, and “minutes” refers to the information being recorded.

Minutes are not simply a transcript of absolutely everything that was said during the meeting but rather a document containing a summary of all the main points that meeting attendees discussed and any agreements they came to.

The minutes need to be provided in a way that makes them easy to read and makes sense to the recipients whether or not those individuals were even in attendance.

A minute taker’s responsibilities include:

• Taking meeting notes
• Understanding the meeting topic
• Listening carefully
• Providing properly formatted minutes

Why is minute-taking important?

Minute-taking is important because it is the only way to get an official written account of everything that happened in a meeting. This makes obvious sense for legal professionals who will often need to receive minutes in a written document rather than in a media file such as a video or a sound recording.

Video or audio recordings of meetings are also difficult to sift through if someone is trying to find a specific point of action in the meeting. In fact, it might mean that they will have to watch or listen to the entire meeting just to find the relevant section. In comparison, meeting minutes are properly laid out so that readers can seamlessly find the required information.

It is important that effective minutes are taken when there is a legal aspect to a meeting so that everyone agrees on what was said especially in potentially contentious matters such as disciplinary hearings for employees.

Well-recorded minutes also mean that everyone will know what was agreed upon in a meeting whether or not they were present.

Impartial minute-taking

Hiring a professional minute taker means you have removed all possibility of bias in the recording of your meeting’s events. Employing a member of your internal staff to record minutes leaves the business open to bias, whereas a professional minute taker is completely impartial. This is especially important in those before-mentioned contentious meetings.

Where a meeting might affect the company as a whole, employing a professional minute taker removes any conflict of interest which is critical when the minutes are delivered to stakeholders.

Experience & knowledge

By hiring a professional minute taker, businesses remove any concerns that important parts of the meeting will be missed or poorly reflected in the minutes. In other words, when a business hires a professional minute taker, meeting administrators and attendeees can squarely focus on the meeting itself.

At Global Lingo, we will assign professional minute takers who are experts in your field. As consummate professionals, our minute takers will know exactly what needs to be recorded to ensure success of the meeting and clarity in the minutes.

Professional minute takers are trained to ensure unwavering levels of attention throughout the span of the meeting — rest assured that your minutes will remain consistent from beginning to end.

Professional minute-taking saves you time

Using a professional minute taker will save your company time, something that is especially important when it comes to time-sensitive, business-critical meetings.

Our team will take minutes quickly, freeing you up to discuss the important decisions that lie in front of you and your team. Our minute takers will also provide a quick turnaround time, delivering the finished document much faster than an internal member of your team would be able to.

You will also save time with a professional minute taker when it comes to reading the minutes. By providing a well-formatted document, your leadership team will waste no time attempting to decipher the notes.

Social distancing & safety

While we continue to feel the effects of the coronavirus pandemic, it is important to limit the number of people in attendance at any given meeting. This new reality increases the need for minute-taking so that businesses can inform those not in attendance via the meeting’s minutes.

However, this increased need also means the need for a minute taker. At Global Lingo, we can provide completely remote minute-taking services via a secure connection — in other words, you will receive in-depth and clear minutes without the need for any additional people in the meeting room itself.

Minute-taking at Global Lingo

At Global Lingo, we have consolidated our reputation as an outstanding provider of minute-taking services on a local, national, and global scale. Our on-site and remote minute takers can attend a number of meetings across a broad spectrum of industries and countries. We will also ensure that we provide a professional expert in your language and industry from our selection of expert minute takers.

Our minute takers receive ongoing training and development, managed by our dedicated in-house linguist management teams, ensuring high-quality work, clear presentation, and completely accurate content.

Find out more about our expert minute-taking services or get in touch today.