Why So Many Meetings Are a Waste of Time

For U.S. employees, the hours spent discussing work issues with bosses and colleagues—and prepping for those meetings—seems to rival the time spent actually doing their work, according to a survey from Clarizen. In a sense, we bring this on ourselves, as today's collaborative office environment is considered by many to be the ideal workplace culture. Collaboration, of course, requires meetings—including seemingly endless status meetings and conference calls. Unfortunately, during these discussions, the attendees' attention tends to wander, and many participants put themselves on hold during conference calls, indulging in a wide range of both professional (checking emails) and personal (eating lunch) activities. Status meetings "substantially decrease the amount of time and energy workers can devote to completing meaningful work," said Viken Eldemir, general managers of the Americas for Clarizen. "Solutions that drive productive, collaborative work can make a dramatic impact on the efficiency of teams by focusing meetings on strategy and planning versus boring status updates." A total of 1,120 U.S. workers took part in this research, which was conducted by the Harris Poll.