Meetings: A waste of time?

Almost eight out of ten workers in the UK believe that most of their work meetings are unnecessary or unproductive, costing businesses thousands of pounds in unnecessary spend each year and wasting valuable working hours, according to research published today by Robert Walters, the global recruitment company.

An international survey of over 2,000 workers has revealed that in the UK, 80% of respondents agreed they waste time by attending at least half of their meetings because they are unstructured and result in no defined actions ñ questioning why the meetings are called in the first place.

According to Susan Major, Director of Human Resources recruitment at Robert Walters, ìMeetings are an essential part of business ñ 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 ñ then itís pointless for the employee and their company. Meetings should be productive ñ letís not have meetings for the sake of it,î she says.

Other findings show that less than one in ten people around the world truly believe in the effectiveness of meetings. The Japanese are the strongest supporters of meetings, closely followed by the Irish, whilst in South Africa meetings tend to be least productive.

ìGood planning and preparation increases the effectiveness of meetings, which saves everyone time, saves organisations money and may also help to reduce employee frustrationî, adds Major.

Tips from Robert Walters to improve the productivity of meetings:

Agendas: A meaningful agenda is vital to any meeting. Make a specific list of what should be accomplished in the meeting and tick these off as you go through them.

Priorities: As a group, prioritise items on the agenda in order of importance and then allocate time to be spent discussing each issue.

Timing: Consider the time of day the meeting is being held. People are usually more creative and switched on in the morning and tend to be sluggish after lunch.

It is also important to ensure that the meeting begins and ends on time to avoid frustration. If a meeting is running over, people are thinking about what they are missing at their next appointment or what emails are sitting in their inbox not what is happening in the meeting.

People: Ensure only the right people are invited to the meeting. Assemble a group of people who can actually come up with new ideas, help solve the problem or benefit from being involved in the meeting. Try to ensure the key decision makers pertaining to the issue attend the meeting.

Blackberries

Mobiles: Contrary to popular belief, these can be switched off. Nothing stops the flow of a meeting more irritatingly than the continual jingle of a mobile phone, the ping of an email and the participants responding, when their attention is supposed to be focused on the business in hand. Tell everyone to switch their phones and blackberries off. If anyone is waiting on something urgent, they can always ask to keep it switched on ñ but they should at least ask!

Evaluation: At the end of the meeting, evaluate the meetingsí effectiveness by checking the agenda to ensure all items have been discussed and ask participants for feedback.

Follow up: Establish an action plan at the end of the meeting and assign responsibility and timelines for tasks. It is also useful, at this time, to determine discussion points for the next session to enable participants to begin thinking about what they need to prepare.