Does banning meetings help workers get back their time?
Are meetings stealing your precious work hours? The question of banning meetings to reclaim time has sparked a lively debate. Let's delve into the pros and cons, and explore if this radical approach could be the key to enhanced productivity.
No meetings
Most workers spend large chunks of their day in conference rooms and on virtual calls, and much of that time is wasted
- 67% of respondents felt that too many meetings harmed their impact at work
- This meeting culture goes right to the top of organizations
- Research has shown that meetings keep most senior managers from completing their work
Well-meaning initiatives?
Emptying calendars of meetings may seem like a productivity win-win.
- However, without addressing pre-existing issues, an outright meeting ban simply moves the problem elsewhere
- Reform, not remove – changing meetings and the ecosystem in which they sit so they’re more effective
Zoom has replaced many meetings during the pandemic
Analysis of employees’ meeting invitations at 21,500 global companies by Harvard Business School revealed that although meetings were on average 12 minutes shorter versus pre-pandemic, people were attending 13% more of them
- More meetings, for more employees, mean more fragmented workdays
- Bad meetings have knock-on effects that spill into the workday, as well as depriving workers of their time
- Meeting recovery syndrome, where workers ruminate post-meeting, can dent productivity
- Constant context switching comes at a cost: it’s a form of multitasking, which our brains aren’t built to handle
TheSoul Publishing has gone to extreme lengths with its blanket ban on meetings
Internal emails are also prohibited, meaning writers, animators, and editors can focus on head-down creative work
- They use platforms optimized for asynchronous communication
- This means information is transparent, concise, and can be accessed by anyone – whenever and wherever they are
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