Do meetings help you do your job more effectively? After all, we are meeting more now than ever. Whether you are working remotely, hybrid, or following an RTO mandate, you see an increase in meetings. Yes, those dreaded sessions where we stare at our screens and try to stay focused while someone talks for too long or no one talks at all.  

Too many meetings 

If you feel like you’ve got too many meetings, you’re not alone. In fact, research shows that the number of meetings has increased significantly over the last three years as remote and hybrid workforces need more coordination effort. We found in our research that meetings and related coordination efforts average 18.7% or 7.48 hours of your week in total. One of our customers calculated that coordination overhead was costing their organization $3.6 Million per year, before adopting TopLine!

We have tools but are they helping? 

The move to remote during the pandemic drove adoption of many collaboration tools. According to a survey by Gartner, nearly 80% of workers are using collaboration tools for work in 2021, up from just over half of workers in 2019. (“Gartner Survey Reveals a 44% Rise in Workers’ Use of Collaboration …”) That’s an increase of 44% since the pandemic began.  

The way we meet has changed as well with changes in length, the number of attendees, and the spontaneity. Here are some interesting stats: 

• Remote meetings have become 25% shorter — decreasing from an average of 43 minutes in 2020 to 33 minutes per meeting in 2022. (“5 ‘major ways’ remote meetings have changed since the pandemic – Advisory”) 
• The average number of participants in each meeting has decreased by half, with an average of 20 participants per meeting in 2020 and 10 participants in 2022. This is due to the increase in one-on-one meetings rather than group meetings. 
• While just 17% of one-on-one meetings were unscheduled in 2020, 66% of one-on-one meetings were unscheduled in 2022. This suggests that remote workers are more likely to reach out to their colleagues spontaneously rather than plan ahead. 
• The average remote employee is spending twice the time in meetings as their onsite counterparts. (“5 Important Statistics for Hybrid and Remote Workplaces”) This is because remote collaboration is more difficult and requires more communication and alignment. 

We are adapting but are still challenged 

So, what does this all mean for us? Well, on the one hand, it shows that we are adapting to the new reality of work and finding ways to stay connected and productive. On the other hand, it also raises some challenges and questions: 

• Are we sharing information and status in the most effective manner? 
• Can we reduce overall time in meetings? 
• How can we balance our meeting time with our focused work time? 
• How can we make our meetings more effective and engaging?  
• How can we avoid meeting fatigue and burnout? 
• How can we foster a positive work culture that supports our employees’ life experiences? 

How can we improve the situation? 

There are three primary ways to reduce meeting activity.

First, reduce the reasons needed to meet. Team meetings are the most common meeting and sharing status is the most common activity in the meeting.

Second, decide if a meeting is the best way to push and pull the relevant information for the work to be done.

Lastly, ensure your meetings are run most efficiently.  

Meeting pet peeves 

According to Fellow’s “Remote Meeting Statistics: The Future of Meetings Report “, the following are the top five meeting issues found with meetings today. 

• Status updates 
• Going off topics 
• Lack of preparation 
• No clear takeaways 
• Time management 

Couldn’t this have been an email? 

Overall, status updates were found to be the most time consuming and ineffective way to communicate the relevant information. Darren Murph, Gitlab, was quoted below said status updates can be done more efficiently as an asynchronous activity.

If you want people to contribute updates, status update meetings are the first to go. There are certain meetings that are just more amenable to being asynchronized and stand-ups are a great example. But many people still want dedicated time to do it asynchronously. So, we encourage people to put a block of time in their calendar that works for them, to provide the updates asynchronously. 

– Darren Murph, Head of Remote at GitLab 

We agree with Mr. Murph, as status collection, curation into actionable views, and status communication are core to TopLine. Our research found that most status updates are sourced from systems the team uses. Most teams have at least 15 sources of data from which to draw updates. We created a Zapier connector to gather the information automatically.

If you must have a meeting, prep for it 

Now that you’ve decided a meeting is needed, ensure that you have the following items set ahead of time. Some preparation will pay large dividends as attendees will feel more engaged. 

• Clear meeting purpose with desired outcomes 
• Agenda of topics to be discussed with primary conversation driver noted 
• Ice breaker discussion questions 
• Share any relevant information or documents beforehand and stick to the agenda during the meeting.   

Your meeting culture is massively important 

No one can manage their schedule in a vacuum. It’s a team effort to ensure that meeting times are scheduled when it is most convenient and effective for everyone. Your meeting culture should support decisions around live attendance and support asynchronous collaboration where possible via meeting recordings and transcripts. 

We suggest the following to help you in managing your schedule. 

• Never be afraid to say no. Decide if this meeting is relevant, necessary, and valuable for your role and goals.  If not, either decline or delegate to someone else. 
• Use different formats and tools for different types of meetings. For example,  
  • Use video conferencing for brainstorming and relationship-building sessions 
  • Use audio calls for quick check-ins 
  • Use TopLine.io for updates 
  • Use chat or email for simple questions and feedback 
  • Use collaborative platforms for co-creating and sharing work 

• Encourage participation and interaction in your meetings. Ask open-ended questions, solicit opinions and ideas, use polls and quizzes, use virtual whiteboards and sticky notes, use breakout rooms and icebreakers, use emojis and reactions. Make your meetings fun and engaging! 
• Respect your own and others’ time and energy. Start and end your meetings on time, avoid scheduling back-to-back meetings, take breaks between meetings, limit your meeting time per day or week, block your calendar for focused work or personal time. 

Hybrid can be great with support 

A recent survey from Paylocity found that 76% of surveyed employees felt their work culture improved with a hybrid work environment. “Additionally, companies that support their employees’ life experiences saw a 21% increase in high performers compared to companies that don’t provide the same benefits.” (“6 Ways to Engage with Remote & Hybrid Employees | Paylocity”) 

Call to Action

We hope you found this post useful. We think TopLine.io can help you move status updates out of your meetings. Our customers have eliminated half of their status meetings using TopLine. Click here to see a one-minute tour!

If you have any comments or questions, feel free to leave them below or contact us at hello@topline.io. And if you liked this post, please share it with your friends and colleagues. Thanks for reading!