Why meetings may be killing your productivity

When it comes to productivity, its greatest enemy just may be constant meetings that, in most cases, produce nothing. Why are so many businesses seemingly addicted to having meetings so often? The meetings take everyone away from their productive work to the point where your employees are playing catch up for the rest of the day. In some startling research released by Otter, it seems as if it may be time to re-evaluate your constant micromanaging via meetings. The following is taken directly from that recently published research:

  • 5% of an organization’s time is spent in meetings, which has increased every year since 2008.
  • It has been observed that middle managers spend 35% of their time in meetings.
  • The employees in upper management spend 50% of their time in meetings.
  • Research suggests that employees spend 4 hours per week, preparing for status update meetings.
  • A recent survey found that 67% of employees complain that spending too much time in meetings hinders them from being productive at work.
  • More than 35% of employees found that they waste 2 to 5 hours per day on meetings and calls, but they achieve nothing to show.
  • Most employees attend 62 meetings per month, where half of the meetings are a complete waste of time.
  • Executives consider 67% of meetings a complete failure in communicating the sole purpose of conducting them.
  • A survey suggests that 92% of employees find themselves multitasking during meetings.
  • 41% of respondents confess that they often multitask or all the time during a meeting.
  • 69% of employees check their email frequently during a meeting.

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  • 49% of employees admitted that they do other unrelated work during meetings rather than paying attention to the meeting agenda.
  • A report suggests that 91% of employees daydreamed during their meetings. In comparison, 45% felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of meetings they attended.
  • A survey of 182 senior managers found that 71% of them feel that meetings are unproductive.
  • 45% of senior executives feel that productivity can be increased among the workforce only if meetings were limited to at least one day a week.
  • Managers and professionals lose 30% of their time in meetings that they could have invested in other productive tasks.
  • Ineffective meetings make professionals lose 31 hours every month, which sums up to 4 working days.
  • Sitting in useless meetings drains an employee off their energy, brainpower, and stamina. After coming out of an unproductive meeting, an employee needs some time to recover, affecting their productivity.
  • 44% of participants in a survey said that sudden or unscheduled meetings mean that they do not have enough time to focus on their work.
  • 95% of meeting attendees lose focus and miss parts of the meeting, while 39% doze off at meetings.

-Written by Kevin Sawyer