Meetings are considered an essential part of business. They provide the opportunity for personnel to get together and discuss new ideas, processes and problems or make important decisions or relay important messages – there are many reasons why face-to-face meetings can be useful.
However, the reality is, meetings are usually a waste of time. They end up spiralling off-topic with no outcome, take much longer than intended and leave attendees feeling drained and uninspired. When meetings go bad (unfortunately this is not the title of a funny YouTube video) they affect performance and impact the company’s bottom line.
There are many reasons why meetings get a bad reputation. Here are just a few of the most common reasons we come across:
They take up too much time
Research shows that most professionals attend a total of 62 meetings per month. Typically, that amounts to around a quarter of their working week in meetings or in meeting prep. Work for 40 years and that’s 10 years spent in, or getting ready to be in, meetings.
According to various studies around the Internet, approximately one-third of employees say meetings are inefficient and could be shorter.
They lack focus and structure
A study conducted by Atlassian reported that of the average meeting goer:
- 91% of professionals admit to daydreaming during meetings.
- 73% admit to doing other, unrelated work during meetings.
- 39% have fallen asleep during a meeting at some point in their life.
It is estimated that half the time spent in meetings is completely useless, usually due to the lack of agenda or planning.
Most consider that a prepared agenda is essential to a successful meeting and that better technology could also have a positive impact.
There is no follow up
Even if a meeting is considered successful and productive, if nothing happens afterwards, it was still a big waste of time. Actions, responsibilities and timelines are often unclear leaving staff unsure of who’s responsible for particular tasks and when they need to be completed.
When minutes are taken and action plans made, it is estimated that on average more than half of workers today use more than four applications on a daily basis to manage tasks, making following up from meetings an even bigger challenge.
Stop wasting time and money
It is estimated that U.S. businesses waste $37Bn per year on unnecessary meetings.
Unified communication platforms help you to make your meetings more efficient and reduce the time and money wasted on long, unnecessary and unproductive meetings.
With one unified system you can:
- Launch audio and video conferencing
- Share desktops and applications
- View attendee lists
- Send external participants a link to join the meeting
- Make notes and actions that can be accessible to everyone involved
There are heaps of benefits to using unified, hosted telephony systems for your business, making meetings more efficient is just one one of them. For more information about how a hosted communication platform can benefit your business, please get in touch on 02921 111202 or sales@porthlas.com.
Kane is a leading, independent telecoms company based in South Wales. We understand that no two businesses are the same and use our knowledge and experience to deliver secure and reliable phone systems to help you to provide your customers with an experience that is second to none.
