As a planner, you know how business conferences can help employees become more productive, more motivated, and more valuable to a company. However, meetings can also create a more well-rounded employee as well. Here are two ways you can help businesses improve their employees’ breadth of knowledge through conference and meeting attendance.

Technology Transfer

This term may be old, but it’s a good one. Transfer of information happens even between conference/meeting session. When people have to choose between two sessions that they are interested in, they often ask for materials or information from others who attended the one they missed. Offer to plan interim meeting sessions for technology transfer, even if they are only for an hour a day. Reserve a room just for that purpose and schedule nothing else during that time.

Contributions

Employers sometimes ask favors of the people they send to meetings and conferences. The request them to offer a synopsis of sessions to others in the company. Often these employees will offer a synopsis of what applies to their jobs only. Instead, suggest that the employers ask for a special report on the events that they attended which did not apply to directly to their jobs. For instance, if a salesperson attended a conference meeting on social media or team building, that could be a great adjunct to the other sessions and give a better perspective on her actual job duties.

There are countless other ways a meeting can help employees’ knowledge in unexpected ways. How about the receptionist who attends business meetings and comes back to work with ideas on “greening” up the company? What about the new accountant who comes back with an idea on cutting the costs of a vehicle fleet? Because human ideas are endless, the possibilities are, too.