When we are starting on a new job we will get everyone together to discuss and to make it clear what we expect from them and to hear if they have any suggestions or concerns. It saves some time later if we'd have to explain it after its started or if a major mistake could be avoided.

Never did much for me. I was with a small Fortune 500 company the past 2 years and the ceo would sit everyone down and give us a bunch of happy BS about how the company had a positive net cash flow this quarter and is making strides in the right direction but still we are not where we need to be to stay competetive so we need to lay people off and outsource to India and give you smaller cubes with no windows and unless you are a VP you will not get an office although you may be qualified for a slightly larger cube with your own parking spot across the street because there is nothing available under the building since we began renting spots to another company. Sorry there may not be a raise or bonus this year, either. If you feel unmotivated just remember that you should be happy you have a job at all, just look at all those IT guys who lost their jobs to India and now have to work at McDonald's just to keep a roof over their heads while our lovely ceo sits back and wonders what she should do with the $1MM bonus she is getting next month.

All that employee meeting do is point out everything that needs to be improved. Sometimes for a short time things run better, but generally go back to the way things were before. It's a waste of time and money.

meetings are generally called by people who don't have enough work to do, so they call a meeting to give the people who are overwhelmed more work to do.

These are useless. They've already made up their mind before employess have even opened their mouths, they do this to look like they actually care. They hear you alright, they just have a problem listening.

Usually a waste of time - but not always. I once had a CEO that I really liked working for. He was an unbelievable public speaker and was smart as hell. He made you WANT to work hard for him. He would have monthly meetings with 1000 or so employees during which he would lay out the things he thought were important, and why they were important. Just about everybody would leave these things fired up. I have to say that this type of leader is the exception, not the rule.