Managers throughout the UK are spending five and a half days a month preparing for, travelling to, attending or writing up notes for meetings that are considered by many to be a waste of time.
The research, conducted by Adobe, shows that meetings now comprise of a quarter of the working week, yet respondents consider that they are only attentive for just over half (56%) of a two hour meeting, meaning that in total, UK managers spend 10 days of the year sat distracted in meetings, ultimately costing UK businesses £7.5bn a year.
The most distracting things in meetings were cited as irrelevant content (69%) and meeting length (65%).
With fewer than half of managers admitting they had no formal training on meeting effectiveness, results indicate that many do not put enough thought into meeting content or who the meeting is relevant to.
Further results show that more than half of managers (56%) think they spend too much time in meetings, while two thirds of office workers think that the time they spend in meetings could be more productive.
“Our research shows that meetings have come to dominate the working week, particularly for managers, and unsurprisingly meetings are viewed negatively by many employees,” said David Stevenson, business development manager at Adobe.
“Meetings play a vital role in many businesses,” he added. “However, research shows that they often take place for no good reason and suffer from poor planning, costing UK businesses time and money.”
Solutions to make better use of time include making the most of new technology by using webinars to communicate, as well as creating a strong agenda and sticking to it.
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2007
