new one report good Microsoft says that since February 2020, the average Microsoft-Teams audience saw a 252 percent increase in their weekly online meeting time.
The report also says that the number of weekly online meetings 150 percent increase.
As workplaces call workers back to the office or move to a hybrid model, Jan Raver, an organizational behavior specialist at Queen’s University’s Smith School of Business in Kingston, Ont., says it’s important to find more effective ways to collaborate. It’s time.
Raver says meeting times can be dialed back by at least 25 to 30 percent or more, as most offices are still operating in a hybrid model. While collaboration requires establishing contact with people via video call, managers may consider whether they need the full 60 minutes.
“I think organizations should have a default of 45 or 50 minutes. Your organizational scheduling isn’t the default 60-minute meeting, bring it back at least 25 percent. Are you really in need of a 30-minute meeting? Maybe You need five minutes or 10. Do we really need to schedule all those times all the time?
“And even better, let’s consider having post meetings where we don’t even put them on the calendar to begin with, but we say, ‘Hey, do you have five minutes to chat?'”
He said that before the pandemic, managers were in the habit of walking around the office and seeing who was doing what. With remote work, they wanted a way to see if people were actually working.
“There was an attempt or interest to exert more control through meetings. But this has led to such a huge increase in meetings, which is completely unnecessary, in my opinion.
As people head back into the office, Raver said they need time to reconnect and engage in more informal, spontaneous ways, and to foster innovation and positive energy.
There has also been a change in the behavior of people attending online meetings, he said. Sitting in a boardroom and multitasking wasn’t really an option, as no one usually pulls out their computer and starts typing in the middle of a work meeting. But it’s something everyone is doing now, Raver said.
“We know from research on multitasking that it’s a terrible way to try to be productive that really ends up with constant partial attention.”
He said shorter meetings — say, 20 minutes instead of an hour — can allow employees to focus on the meeting, then work for 20 minutes and have free time to do something else.
As a solution to the problem of too many meetings, Raver suggests that managers think about the minimum number of people that are needed for a meeting. Later, meeting minutes can also be shared with the rest of the group for a quick summary.
Another solution is the idea of pulse meetings – instead of having an hour-long meeting, have a 20-minute team solve at some point during the day. In addition to meetings, there are new communication channels that allow employees and managers to collaborate asynchronously to get things done without actually face-to-face, such as instant messaging, draft feedback and other collaboration platforms, he said.
“It’s an effective way to stay in the flow of doing your personal productive work, while getting the information you need when you need it, and not waiting for that meeting later,” she said.
Despite the overall tendency to spend extra time in meetings, some people have actually held fewer meetings during the pandemic. Raver said there are people who have enjoyed a more personal-focused approach during the pandemic, where they weren’t overloaded with emails and meetings from their employers and colleagues. That group loved individual productivity, increased focus and attention, and could get more done.
Raver concluded by saying that it’s not just about skipping meetings for the sake of it, but to preserve people’s ability to stay productive.
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