Member Article

Meetings: a waste of time?

Eight out of ten workers believe that most meetings are unnecessary or unproductive, according to research from recruitment company Robert Walters.

Unstructured meetings that result in no defined actions cost businesses thousands of pounds each year in wasted working hours. But less than one in ten people around the world truly believe in the effectiveness of meetings, the survey revealed. The Japanese are the strongest supporters of meetings, closely followed by the Irish. Workers in South Africa were the most likely to believe that a high proportion of meetings were unproductive.

Susan Major, Director of Human Resources recruitment at Robert Walters, said: “Meetings are an essential part of business your average executive level employee will attend two to three meetings a day. However, there is a question whether some of these meetings are worth it. If they are wasting valuable working hours and nothing comes out of it then it’s pointless for the employee and their company. Meetings should be productive - let’s not have meetings for the sake of it.”

The company said that in order to be effective, meetings must have a prioritised agenda of what the meeting must accomplish, start and finish promptly, and only include people who can come up with new ideas, help solve the problem or can make key decisions. The meeting chair should also establish an action plan at the end of the meeting and assign responsibility and timelines for tasks. Morning meetings tend to be more productive, with workers feeling sluggish after lunch.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .