Shocking Meeting Statistics In 2020 (That Will Take You By Surprise)

Meetings are part of our professional lives — no work schedule is complete without them. But that doesn’t mean all meetings are productive endeavors; unfortunately, most are considered a waste of time!

That’s because it takes considerable time and resources to set one up. Employees have to take time away from productive work to prepare for unproductive conversations, which usually means interruptions in deep work.

Not only this, the sheer amount of ineffective meetings incur huge expenses. Just look around the table during your next meeting and estimate the hourly salary of everyone there — that’s how much this little get-together is costing your organization.

That’s why it’s important to not conduct meetings just for the sake of them. You should have an agenda for every session and limit it to less than half-hour.

Here are some mind-boggling meeting statistics that may convince you:

The Meeting Trends Of 2020

Before 2020, organizations and businesses worldwide only dreamed of a world where meetings were held online. But the Covid-19 pandemic changed the landscape of meetings, and companies from all over the world experienced a massive influx of virtual meetings.

We have collected data from various surveys to see if the meeting trends are running in the right direction. This is what we gathered:

Statistics are from the National Bureau Of Economic Research and Doodle.

Time Spent In Meetings — Statistics

Meetings constitute a huge part of work where many employees view it as a necessary task that keeps the company’s processes intact, and the team members engaged. But they fail to realize the amount of time spent on such meetings and their effect on its employees.

The staggering statistics surrounding the time spent on such meetings show a scary picture. Let’s find out the ugly truth about how meetings are a waste of time.

Statistics are from Attentiv, KornFerry, The Muse, Cleverism.

Loss Of Productivity And Time Associated With Ineffective Meetings

Surely, meetings are an effective method for in-person communication, but they can often become frustrating and unnecessarily time-consuming. Most of the employees know how painful it is to get an email for a quick meeting in the middle of some important work.

But the impact goes deeper when more and more meetings have long-lasting consequences on the employees’ productivity or time and the organization’s budget.

Here’s how meetings are affecting organizations and businesses.

Statistics are from The Muse and Atlassian.

Now when it comes to productivity, recent meeting statistics suggest that,

Statistics are from Timely, HR Digest, Harvard Business Review, and Condeco.

The Cost Of Unproductive Meetings

Not only productivity and time, but meetings also affect the budget of an organization. They can easily be termed as one of the most expensive communication forms among employees in the workplace.

Here are some alarming numbers on the amount of money spent on setting up meetings:

• A survey of 6,500 people from the USA, UK, and Germany found that among the 19 million meetings that were observed, the ineffective meetings cost up to $399 billion in the US and $58 billion in the UK.
• Ineffective meetings cost up to $70 to $283 billion to the US economy.
• Suppose an average employee is making $60,000 per year and a company has 100 employees. In that case, the cost of meetings rises to $2,250,000, while the cost of unproductive meetings per year is $751,500.

Statistics are from Doodle, Inc, and ReadyTalk.

The Most Popular Methods To Connect In Meetings

With the growing trend of remote employees and the changing workplace, meetings have evolved. As technology advances, so has the ways that employees connect, communicate, and work.

The following are some statistics on the preferred channels of communication during meetings.

Statistics are from International Search Consultants, Medium, and Insider.

These are some of the most surprising statistics that you can use. If you want to create more productive meetings in your company and enhance employee performance, Otter.ai might be the tool you need. Otter.ai can help your team save time, cut down on the stress of virtual meetings, and create a thriving remote work environment. Sign up for a free trial today!

Originally published at https://blog.otter.ai on December 24, 2020.