56% of Employees Believe Too Many Meetings Affecting Job Performance

Did you know, meeting times have gone up from less than 10 hours in the 1960s to around 23 hours by 2017, Harvard Business Review? So, it is not that surprising for 56% of employees to say too many meetings are affecting job performance. This according to the State of Meetings Report from Doodle.

Too Many Meetings Affect Job Performance

The data from the Doodle report comes from more than 30 million meetings booked on its platform between January 1st and December 31st, 2020. A couple of the takeaways are more meetings taking place and virtual meetings are here to stay. And the pandemic played a great role in these two data points, driven by restrictions on travel and lockdowns.

The result is an increase of more than 1,230% in 1:1 virtual meetings from January 2020 to December 2020. For group meetings, the rise in the same period was 613%. However, virtual meetings only account for 42% of all meetings. So, even during these growth and challenging times, most meetings are taking place face to face.

Other takeaways:

• Five attendees was the most common group meeting size in 2020
• The U.S. and the UK averaged six and eight people in group meetings while it was 10 for other European countries
• The most common meeting length for groups in 2020 was 60 minutes and 30 minutes for 1:1 meetings
• Overall, the amount of 1:1 meetings saw an increase of more than 62% in 2020
• Almost half, 46.2% of meetings last year were between colleagues

Virtual Meetings and Small Businesses

The growth of virtual meetings was already taking place prior to the pandemic, a whopping 600% between 2018 and 2019. The availability of video conferencing technology, scheduling platforms such as Doodle, and better infrastructure all combined to give small businesses access to virtual meetings.

This allows small businesses to save on business travel and the associated cost that comes with it. And as more consumers and businesses use the technology for everyday communication, virtual meetings will be the norm.

Make Your Next Meeting More Productive

A study by Steven Rogelberg, of the University of North Carolina, surveyed 182 senior managers in a range of industries. More than 2/3 or 71% said meetings are unproductive and inefficient, while 65% said meetings keep them from completing their own work.

Meetings are necessary; however, you must set clear objectives along with accountability to meet those objectives. This includes setting limits with starting and ending times, addressing the goals set before the meeting, inviting only people that are necessary, and have strict rules about eating and smartphones. After the meeting send out an evaluation sheet and follow-up note to every participant.

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This article, “56% of Employees Believe Too Many Meetings Affecting Job Performance” was first published on Small Business Trends