Do you know what the biggest time waster at work is? No, it’s not checking your social media updates. Take another guess.

It’s meetings. A few years back, emails were the biggest time wasters at work. Sending and replying to emails takes the top spot of biggest time waster at 57%. But if you factor in the amount of time spent on preparing for, attending, and extending the meetings, that takes up a much larger chunk of time compared to reading, writing, and replying to emails.

Here are a few more cringe-worthy stats:
● On the average, employee attends 62 meetings in a month and half of those are considered as time wasted.
● 31 hours are spent on average in unproductive meetings in a month

In an average meeting, an employee has at one time or another:
● Missed it (96%)
● Daydreamed (91%)
● Did other work (73%)
● Complained (47%)
● Felt overwhelmed (45%)
● Slept (39%)

Unproductive meetings cost US big businesses $37 Billion. It’s not only big businesses that are affected. In the UK, SMEs lose an average of £63,700 per annum on meetings. With that amount of money going down the drain, something needs to change.

39% of staff fall asleep during meetings and the company can’t really do anything about that aside from providing free coffee. But a shocking 63% of meetings don’t even have a prepared agenda, and that’s where major improvement can come in.

Having a clear agenda before calling a meeting can help the host and all the attendees immensely. Going into a meeting with a vague idea of what you want to get out of it rarely ends on a productive note. So, start with identifying the objective of the meeting. Ask yourself what you want to get out of it and once you’ve set a purpose and a goal, you can start building the agenda from there.

Having an agenda will keep the discussions on track. Write down some focus points and discussion topics – keep those detailed to lessen the chances of veering off course.

Share the agenda with attendees before the meeting, at the very least, the day before so that they too can prepare their questions and suggestions. And ruthlessly cull out anybody who doesn’t need to be there. Most meetings are designed to make decisions and not just share information. If they can be just copied into an email that details the results of the meeting, then don’t invite them anymore.

Don’t be late. Attendees are expected to arrive on time. Meeting hosts are expected to arrive well before the meeting time.

Consider stand up meetings for agendas that have only a few focus points. People are more engaged during stand-up meetings and the time limit is more often followed. Obviously, this won’t work for longer meetings or planning sessions but works great for 1-3 discussion point meetings.

Stick to the agenda. It’s best to provide a timed agenda, if possible. Assign roles and have an idea parking lot which acts as a “repository” for focus points that would need more information or more time to decide on. Don’t forget to follow those up!

What are your teams meeting habits? Are they productive? What areas can you improve on? Let us know in the comments below. Stay humble and hustle hard!

 

Written by Jaie O. The Help