How Many Meetings Are Too Much

DON’T GET US WRONG, MEETINGS ARE NECCASSARY FOR A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS, BUT HOW OFTEN & HOW MANY ARE TOO MUCH?

We surveyed over 8,000 local employees, from upper management, to operators. Over 70% of those interview believed their company focused more on meetings than on new opportunities. Some said opportunities were missed and deadlines were even pushed out due to meetings taking up valuable time. If you find yourself meeting every week for more than 1 hour it also seems to make employees feel as if they’re not trusted. 

Personally I’ve found that a solid meeting is one that’s held at most bi-weekly for an hour, where tasks and planning is discussed, as well as reviewing recent projects. To be even more organized we’ve found that planning out a monthly strategy and then meeting to discuss has been the most beneficial and organized.

We’ll be sharing many statics below, but here’s one stat that really caught our attention; data shows that unproductive meetings are linked to roughly $37 billion in losses per year. 

Most employees in the United States (around 83%) spend up to 33% of their workweek in meetings. That stat was taken in 2021 and the numbers have only gone up.

When determining the purpose of the meeting, repetition in messaging stood out the most. Employee’s stated, that many meetings are simply a repeat of what had been discussed just 3-4 days prior. Companies also found that an overabundance of meetings lights the spark that causes chaos an unorganized tasks. When you meet with a team every 4-5 business days management is more likely to shoot from the hip and assign tasks off an idea that just then popped in their head. Just 11% of meetings are considered productive, despite organizations spending around 15% of their working hours in meetings.