Dan Schawbel* says workplace meetings will never disappear, but he has some suggestions for weeding out those that are pointless and making those that are essential more productive.
For most people, a cancelled work meeting might be cause for celebration.
In fact, the pointlessness of meetings has become a cultural phenomenon — one that’s been highlighted in social media, television shows, and cartoons for years.
Despite our collective disdain for unnecessary meetings, the shift to remote working has led to — you guessed it — even more meetings.
A study found that there were 60 per cent more remote meetings per employee in 2022 as compared to 2020.
What’s interesting is that this growth was almost solely due to an increase in unscheduled, spontaneous meetings.
Nearly 42 per cent were one-on-one (up from just 17 per cent in 2020).
There’s a valid argument for remote workers needing to meet with each more often in order to stay connected.
However, study after study is finding that it’s all just a bit too much for most workers, and even prior to the pandemic, a lot of meetings were unnecessary.
Is the situation really all that bad, or is it more of a nuisance than anything else?
According to many sources, there’s actually a clear correlation between an excess of pointless meetings and people’s satisfaction at work.
For example, a study from last year found that 65 per cent of people who dislike their jobs say they’re frequently stuck in unproductive meetings, versus just 24 per cent who love their jobs.
While this problem has been around for decades, some organisations are finally taking steps to address it — perhaps due to the dramatic increase in remote meetings.
Earlier this month, Shopify announced that it’s cancelling all recurring meetings with more than two people and encouraging staffers to decline invitations and detach from large internal chat groups.
The company is also reinstituting a rule that no meetings can be held on Wednesdays, and meetings with 50 or more people will be limited to one a week.
Here’s how to revamp your organisation’s meeting culture and ensure that the meetings people do have are productive.
Get a clear picture of your current meeting practices.
How much time are employees spending in meetings?
Does this vary by Department, manager, team, role, or other factors like age or gender?
What types of meetings are employees attending — one-on-ones, small team meetings, or large group meetings?
What days and times are meetings being held?
What is the average meeting length?
Are meetings being scheduled in advance, or are they spontaneous?
Do employees characterise their meetings as productive and useful, or unnecessary?
You’ll now have a better idea of the magnitude of the problem at your organisation and where to devote your efforts.
Create policies to support a better meeting culture, and get managers on-board.
Once you have a good understanding of the current state of things, you’ll need to develop policies and recommendations to enable a better meeting culture.
This might include asking your team members to cancel certain meetings, detach from group chats, limit the length of meetings and the number of attendees, and hold meetings only on specific days.
However, putting policies in place is one thing — you’ll also need to ensure that managers are aligned with the new approach.
This could be easier said than done, especially among newly-promoted managers who hold 39 per cent more meetings than their senior counterparts.
It’s absolutely crucial that you convey the importance of being mindful of employees’ time, and provide tools and suggestions to support managers.
Empower your employees to skip (or cancel) meetings.
A key factor driving the success of your new plan will be enabling your staff to skip or cancel meetings.
Here’s one idea – 71 per cent of employees say they’d be empowered to skip unnecessary meetings if high-quality meeting notes were shared in a timely manner.
There are numerous meeting transcription tools that can facilitate this, or you could tag someone to take notes and disseminate them.
Make sure that the meetings people do have are valuable.
Your team members will still need to have some meetings in order to be productive — but there are steps you can take to ensure these meetings are effective.
It’s important to have a clear meeting purpose and agenda defined well in advance.
It’s also a good idea to identify someone to lead the meeting, to help things run smoothly and ensure that everyone’s voice is heard.
To avoid the infamous ‘Zoom fatigue’, consider using AI tools that can make virtual meetings smoother via the multitude of adjustments they make to people’s audio and video feeds.
Lastly, be sure to leave time at the end of each meeting to outline next steps and assign follow-up tasks.
All too often, meetings conclude with lots of good ideas and intentions but no clear path forward.
*Dan Schawbel is a bestselling author and Managing Partner of Workplace Intelligence, a research and advisory firm helping HR adapt to trends, drive performance and prepare for the future.
This article is part of his Workplace Intelligence Weekly series.
