A Call to Scale Back on Meetings

By Monique Baril ’27, Associate

Think of the last time you were in a meeting; odds are, it was ineffective. Meetings are a huge and growing allocation of financial, time, and emotional resources. However, many meetings are unnecessary and avoidable.

U.S. companies spend more than $37 billion on meetings. In fact, an hour-long meeting with 5 employees costs $338 on average. Today, executives are in meetings an average of almost 23 hours a week, compared to less than 10 hours in the 1960s. Over the past decade, time spent in meetings has increased annually by 8–10%. Likewise, meeting frequency and duration have steadily increased with the adoption of the remote workplace. As of May 2023, the time spent in meetings is three times more than pre-pandemic. For example, 83% of employees spend up to a third of their week in meetings. On top of that, the average employee spends 9 minutes preparing per meeting. There are also less obvious time costs such as context switching which can eat up to 15 minutes per meeting to regain thought process. Because of this, employees often won’t start a new task when they have a meeting in the next 15 minutes. Moreover, 70% of meetings keep employees from doing productive work and 68% of workers say they don’t have enough uninterrupted time to achieve their goals at work. Furthermore, 45% of employees are overwhelmed by the quantity of meetings they are asked to attend and frequent online meetings often lead to “Zoom fatigue”, which is a large contributor to technostress.

The generous allocation towards meetings is largely unwarranted. It has been found meetings are ineffective 72% of the time. Consequently, companies with 5,000 employees have been estimated to waste $100 million annually on unnecessary meetings, and companies with 100 employees $2.5 million. Not to mention, 91% of employees have reported daydreaming during meetings, 39% admitted to falling asleep, and 73% report multitasking on other work. Indicators of too many meetings include when real discussions seem to only happen via meetings, meetings lack an agenda, and when meetings are filled with impertinent people.

Some ways to reduce unnecessary meetings include:

• Be selective: Hold meetings only when necessary such as to review work, clarify and validate structures, and distribute work appropriately. Canceling or ending early can also reduce unnecessary time spent. Tools such as Mural and Google Forms can be used to submit ideas in advance to help structure meetings and gather input. Don’t use meetings as commitment devices. While external deadlines can serve as effective motivators, by canceling meetings when deadlines are met or implementing asynchronous dashboards to collaboratively track progress, many check-in meetings can be eliminated. Also, avoid recurring meetings. Setting up a Slack or Teams channel can replace daily huddles, the most frequently held meeting. It has been found that 83% of employees prefer using these chat touchpoints over traditional one-to-one meetings. When meetings are necessary, a Scrum style standup where participants remain standing can be implemented to keep meetings short. Encouraging feedback can help with the collective identification and elimination of unproductive meetings.
• Reduce attendees: Empower employees to decline meetings. Asana, a work management platform, implemented a policy that allows workers to decline meeting invitations that they feel are irrelevant to their work. Since implementing this, they claim that participants saved 11 hours per month. Changing company culture to not equate presence with productivity and meetings as a task to check off can help employees to decide if attending is the best use of their time. Moreover, only inviting those critical to the conversation can help reduce those who feel obligated to attend, and streamline the discussion.
• Be mindful: Recognize opportunity costs of meetings and reduce average meeting lengths. Scheduling meetings at either end of the day can help reduce the extra waste of time from time-blocking disruptions. No-meeting days can also be implemented which have been found to substantially improve autonomy, communication, engagement, and satisfaction and decrease micromanagement and stress, causing productivity to rise. By implementing two no-meeting days, employee productivity has been seen to increase by 71%. Additionally, promote a responsible meeting culture and develop and share meeting guidelines to stay considerate of others’ time. Encouraging employees to stay focused by closing other tabs, scheduling a short debrief after important calls, and keeping notes can help counteract meeting amnesia. Consider using Artificial Intelligence automatic transcription tools to assist in record keeping for those in and not in attendance.

Meetings can have a tremendous strain on organizations, but there are thankfully many simple and effective measures to reduce unnecessary meetings. Being more thoughtful about meetings poses a huge potential to increase efficiency by scaling back on costs and increasing productivity and well-being.

Monique is a second-year student from Hampton, NH pursuing a major in Business Administration with a focus on Finance, and a minor in Spanish. She is a member of the University Honors Program and maintains a perfect GPA. Monique also plays an active role as a member of several organizations on campus including Hall Council and Alpha Kappa Psi, the professional business fraternity. As a new associate to the Rines Angel Fund, Monique is excited to gain experience in angel investing and fluency using industry-grade tools, programs, and techniques. She also looks forward to learning more about various industries and building meaningful connections.