The hidden cost of meetings

Monday morning, ten o'clock. Eight people in a meeting about the planning. An hour later, everyone leaves feeling good. By Thursday it turns out nobody knows exactly what was decided. So another meeting goes in the diary.

The problem

We meet more than ever. Senior leaders at larger companies spend 40 percent or more of their time in meetings, according to calendar data from more than 30,000 organisations (Fellow, 2024). Remote working has only added to that. Microsoft saw the number of Teams meetings per person rise by 192 percent since February 2020.

But more meetings do not mean more results. In 2024 Atlassian surveyed 5,000 knowledge workers across four continents. Their verdict: meetings are ineffective 72 percent of the time. 78 percent even say they are expected to attend so many meetings that it is hard to get their work done.

That costs money. In a study by meeting scientist Steven Rogelberg, funded by Otter.ai, around a third of meetings were considered unnecessary. What that means for your team depends on your own hourly cost and how many hours your team spends in meetings. The calculator on our homepage works it out for you.

The cause

Meetings rarely fail because people are unwilling. They fail for three reasons.

• There is no clear goal. Everyone walks in with their own idea of what it is about.
• There is talk, but no decision. The conversation goes round in circles or gets bogged down in complaints. German research into 92 filmed team meetings showed that complaining and criticism in particular have a strongly negative effect on the outcome.
• Nobody records what was agreed. 55 percent of employees find the next steps after a meeting unclear, according to Microsoft research among 31,000 people.

That last one is the most expensive. A meeting without recorded agreements almost always leads to a second meeting, just to work out what was said in the first.

71% of employees would be empowered to skip unnecessary meetings if high quality meeting notes were shared in a timely manner.

Otter.ai and Steven Rogelberg, 2022

The solution

The good news: the solution is not complicated. Mostly, it takes discipline.

• Give every meeting a goal in advance: why are we talking, how will we approach it and what should it deliver?
• Invite only the people who are needed. Anyone who just wants to know what was decided gets a summary.
• During the meeting, steer towards decisions and actions, not towards getting through the agenda.
• Record agreements straight away, with who does what, and share them within the hour.
• Plan the next step before everyone leaves.

Shopify showed that it works. At the start of 2023, the company cleared every recurring meeting with three or more participants from its calendars in one go. According to the company, that removed 322,000 hours of meetings.

Stiqqs helps with each of those steps. At the start, Stiqqs asks for the goal of the meeting. During the conversation, you see where you stand and which question will move you forward. And the moment it ends, the summary, the agreements, a follow-up email and a proposal for the next meeting are ready. So a meeting ends with decisions, not with another meeting.

Sources

1. Fellow (2024). State of Meetings 2024. Agendadata van ruim 30.000 organisaties.
2. Atlassian (2024). Workplace Woes: Meetings. Onderzoek onder 5.000 kenniswerkers.
3. Microsoft (2023). Work Trend Index: Will AI Fix Work?
4. Otter.ai & Rogelberg, S. G. (2022). The Cost of Unnecessary Meeting Attendance.
5. NPR (15 februari 2023). Shopify deleted 322,000 hours of meetings.
6. Kauffeld, S., & Lehmann-Willenbrock, N. (2012). Meetings matter. Small Group Research, 43(2), 130-158.