how much time do you waste in meetings?

Meetings were out of control before we entered lockdown. Now we are all expected to be ‘available’ all the time simply because most of us are working from home. It is not unusual for a whole day to pass in an endless stream of online calls. But how many of them are really useful ? 

A quick trawl of statistics on meeting efficiency generated before 2020 back up the theory that meetings are ruining our productivity. Doodle concluded in their State of Meetings report that pointless meetings were due to cost the UK economy £45bn in 2019. Judging from the amount of time people tell us they spend on Zoom or Microsoft Teams these days, we would expect 2020’s cost to be even higher. 

Even back in 2017, the HBR article Stop the Meeting Madness reported that 71% of those they surveyed felt that meetings were unproductive and inefficient and 65% felt that meetings kept them from doing their work. That’s pretty damning.

Move forward to 2020 and, according to Clockwise in their report also called, The State of Meetings, 78% felt their meeting schedule was out of control.

We have to lot to gain from improving the way we plan, run and review meetings: it saves us money and time while increasing productivity. Well run meetings with clear outcomes also gain the goodwill of the participants rather than being a trigger for disengaged employees. But, of course, you know that.

To find out more please get in touch / +44 (0) 207 298 7878