Manage the Meeting Monster: How to Spend Less Time in Video Conferences

Published: April 14, 2022

You’re right! Since COVID you’re stuck in more meetings. One survey shows U.S. professionals in video conferences 20 hours per week, half their work time. (See the Statista graphic accompanying this blog post.) Inc. Magazine cites another survey in its article: “1-on-1 Meetings Are Up 500 Percent Since the Start of the Pandemic and It’s Killing Our Productivity.” A recent Harvard Business Review article, “The Psychology Behind Meeting Overload,” reported that managers say 83% of the meetings on their calendars are unproductive. It states that U.S.-based professionals rated meetings as the “number one office productivity killer.”

How to reduce time in meetings

We’ve all been there. What to do? A simple answer is to hold fewer meetings. But communication and collaboration 

are the lifeblood of every business. Productivity, innovation, and delivery, all depend upon communication. Harvard Business Review cites 6 common psychological pitfalls leading to too many meetings: 1. Meeting FOMO, 2. Selfish Urgency, 3. Meetings as Commitment Devices, 4. The More Urgency Effect, 5. Meeting Amnesia and 6. Pluralistic Ignorance.

A better answer is to manage communications better. Cut some meetings using digital collaboration, project management, tracking and scheduling tools instead. If you must meet, successful use of these tools can make meetings shorter and more efficient. Ensure all participants are properly prepared. As the pandemic descended, a leading provider of employee digital tools, “practiced what it preached.” Atlassian makes tools like Jira, Confluence and Trello used by thousands of teams worldwide. 

“Almost everyone is reeling from the impact of a suddenly remote workforce,” said Molly Bronstein, Sr. Product Marketing Manager, Jira Service Desk, Atlassian. Without missing a beat, Atlassian’s IT and Operations teams increased internal communication with daily stand-ups and frequent check-ins via Slack. They also shared a Confluence page with the whole organization as the one source of truth to facilitate open communication. “Our bottom line: communicate early and often, and use tools that empower collaboration, to ultimately maintain productivity across your organization,” Bronstein concluded.

Click here to download Atlassian’s Data Sheet, “How We’re Making Remote IT Work” and learn how your company can successfully enable your entire workforce to maintain remote work productivity. Managing productivity challenges of remote teams is central to e-Core’s success. A technology consulting and development services provider, e-Core helps high-growth and established companies innovate, scale, and transform. It has more than 14 years of experience outsourcing global projects, optimizing technological delivery capabilities, and delivering Atlassian consulting. 

We are an Atlassian Solution Partner Enterprise with Cloud and Agile at Scale specializations. We offer deep experience in maximizing employee communications efficiency. We can also provide additional workers on a temporary or long-term basis to take the pressure off of your managers in too many meetings. For more than 22 years, e-Core has been a trusted technology partner for customers around the globe, helping them to unlock the value of technology investments. Our mission is to support our customers; our purpose is to make their technology more effective. Leverage e-Core’s expertise to improve processes, expand your software team, or build custom solutions on your behalf. Transform your business, scale for growth, and continuously improve your competitive advantage. Contact e-Core to schedule a brief meeting that promises to address your meeting overload.

e-Core

We are a technology solutions partner for digital innovation and business transformation.
Talk to one of our consultants and learn how we can help you evolve and go further.

Please complete the form below so we can direct your inquiry to the right team:

You may also be interested in:

FinOps Domains