84% Indian Employees Say Meetings Affect Their Productivity: Atlassian Survey
Employees cite time spent in meetings as the No. 1 barrier preventing them from completing their day-to-day tasks.
Atlassian Corp., a provider of team collaboration and productivity software, has released a report that highlights findings on the effectiveness of meetings in the modern workplace and the greatest blockers to productivity.
The survey showed that 84% of Indian knowledge workers agree that they would be more productive if they could spend less time in meetings.
Atlassian, along with Wakefield Research, surveyed 5,000 knowledge workers, including 1,000 in India.
Workers agreed that meetings fail to accomplish their goals 60% of the time. Workers cited time spent in meetings as the No. 1 barrier preventing them from completing their day-to-day tasks, which is ranked ahead of lack of motivation, unclear goals, unclear responsibilities and unsure of who to work with.
The research is divided into themes, which include:
Productivity: Meetings Are Overused, Leaving Workers Overloaded
According to the survey, 90% of Indian respondents said it’s hard to get their work done on top of attending meetings. Around 74% have to work overtime at least a few days a week due to meeting overload, compared to 51% globally. Additionally, 80% said they feel drained on days when they have a lot of meetings.
Atlassian conducted an experiment to test what would happen if they enabled its workforce to design their workdays around their top priorities instead of around attending meetings and reacting to notifications. Results indicated that 67% of individual contributors and 71% of managers who implemented these changes felt they made more progress on top priorities than they would have in a typical week.
Effectiveness: Meetings Don’t Achieve The Desired Outcomes
Among the Indian respondents, 70% said they feel lonely at work, even when they attend lots of meetings, compared to 55% globally. Of the workers surveyed, 88% said they’re frequently in meetings that end in a decision to schedule a follow-up meeting.
According to Atlassian, by using video messaging platforms, workers can get the benefits of a meeting and the convenience of an email. Also, content collaboration and management workspaces can be used, which allow ideas to be shared and feedback to be received without having to conduct frequent meetings.
Culture: Don’t Cancel All Your Meetings (Just Make Them Better)
Among Indian respondents, 66% said they often attend meetings where no goal has been communicated, and 91% think agendas lead to productive meetings. Also, 82% of workers said most meetings could be done in half the time.
Atlassian suggests including goals on the meeting invite, crafting a meeting agenda beforehand and allowing people to contribute their ideas ahead of time. Also, when possible, swap a 30-minute meeting with a 15-minute one.