Survey Shows Status Meetings are a Waste of Time

New York, N.Y. Workers often see meetings as an annoying waste of time, yet they’ll spend hours not only planning meetings, but also being in meetings each week. Status meetings, in particular, however, have been found to be the biggest time wasters. Continue reading to learn more.

What’s a Status Meeting?

A status meeting is basically one during which employees get together to fill each other in on what they’ve accomplished and what still needs to be done. In other words, it’s a meeting that’s designed to update team members on the status of a project, including tasks that have been completed and those that are still being worked on. Brainstorming meetings, company planning meetings, and strategy meetings aren’t considered status meetings.

The Time That’s Wasted on Status Meetings

A survey studied the effectiveness of status meetings, and found that they actually decrease the amount of energy and time that workers would otherwise be devoting to completing meaningful tasks.

The survey results showed that 32 per cent of people participating in status meetings had to waste more than five minutes of their time while they waited for everyone to join their conference call. And 90 per cent of people who have to work from a remote location often encounter communication problems when trying to connect with others during these meetings.

A whopping 74 per cent of workers won’t even be fully engaged in their status meeting because they use it as an opportunity to multitask. 17 per cent will end up putting their phone on mute so they could use the bathroom, 24 per cent will eat their lunch, 22 per cent will take care of personal emails, and 15 per cent will watch TV.

Meetings That Are Actually Worthwhile

Just because status meetings are often considered a waste of time doesn’t mean that all meetings are a waste of time. In fact, there are three meetings , in particular, that every business should participate in.

First, have a meeting with your management team just once a year in order to set your goals for the year ahead. These goals could include financial goals and asset goals, so you can determine how much you want to achieve in profits, products, employees, customers, etc.

Then, to make sure you’re able to meet your goals for the year, create milestones that need to be achieved each month. Have a meeting with your team at the beginning of every month so you can recap what’s been done over the last month and what you might need to do differently.

Finally, have a short meeting in the middle of every month to further check into progress, answer questions and concerns, and make sure everyone’s one track.

If you’re a business owner or team manager, you may want to rethink status meetings if you currently use them in your workplace. Replace these meetings with more productive meetings that your staff will actually enjoy and be engaged in. If you want to find the perfect meeting space for your staff, click here to get your search started.

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