Indian Employees Favor Shorter Meetings
Survey: 84% of Indian employees believe that reducing meeting duration would increase productivity.
According to the survey, meetings are unsuccessful at producing the required results, particularly in India, where 70% of respondents—above the global average of 55%—feel lonely at work despite attending a high number of meetings.
By RethinkHR, March 26, 2024
Meetings are seen as necessary in the business world, although it is still unclear if they actually increase workers’ output and value of their job. In a survey, Atlassian Corporation—a maker of team collaboration and productivity software—found that 84% of Indian knowledge workers thought they would be more productive if they could cut down on meeting time.
According to respondents in the research “Workplace Woes: Meetings Edition,” 60% of the time meetings fall short of their goals. This highlights the inefficiencies of meetings.
In addition, participants ranked meeting time as the biggest obstacle preventing them from finishing their daily activities, placing it above things like a lack of desire, hazy objectives, unclear duties, and doubts about collaboration partners.
Dom Price, Work Futurist at Atlassian, commented, “At Atlassian, we have been exploring improved work practices for over 20 years. We recognise that teams are increasingly dispersed, but those lacking suitable tools and methodologies may find themselves relying on meetings when they may not be the most effective solution. Teams that revert to traditional methods and schedule meetings without thoughtful planning risk falling behind more effective teams that experiment with and leverage dynamic asynchronous tools such as Loom and Confluence.”
Atlassian has adopted an assertive stance. In order to address the issues raised by their research, Atlassian has acted pro-actively on both an internal and external level. The research is structured around three primary themes, each of which focuses on a distinct facet of the problems related to meetings at work.
First of all, the study emphasizes how meeting overload negatively affects output. especially in India, where 90% of respondents said they find it difficult to manage their workload and frequent meetings. A startling 74% of people report that they have to work extra several days a week because of the pressure of frequent meetings.
Furthermore, eighty percent say they feel exhausted on days when their calendar is dominated by meetings. Atlassian’s Team Anywhere Lab ran a creative experiment in reaction to these results. They gave workers the freedom to organize their days according to priorities rather than following a schedule dictated by meetings and alerts.
The results were encouraging, as 67% of individual contributors and 71% of managers reported making more progress on their top priorities than they would have in a regular week.
The study also explores the topic of meetings’ incapacity to provide the intended results. This problem is especially noticeable in India, where 70% of respondents—a greater percentage than the global average of 55%—state that they feel lonely at work even though they attend several meetings.
Furthermore, a startling 88% of participants in meetings end up setting up follow-up sessions, which suggests a lack of effectiveness. In order to solve this, Atlassian advises utilizing solutions like Loom, a video chat service with Al-based transcript capabilities, which combines the advantages of in-person meetings with the practicality of email or Slack.
Additionally, they support the use of Confluence, a workspace for content collaboration, to promote idea sharing and feedback collecting, making meetings more productive and effective. The study concludes by highlighting the significance of cultivating a meeting culture that places an emphasis on quality rather than quantity.
There is a glaring need for change in India, as 66% of participants regularly attend meetings without a stated aim and 82% believe most meetings could be finished in half the time. When it comes to practical solutions, Atlassian advises sending out invitations that clearly state the purpose of the meeting, creating a thorough agenda ahead of time, and, whenever feasible, cutting 30-minute meetings down to 15 minutes. They also provide templates, such as the Meeting Notes template, to help with pre-meeting collaboration and idea sharing, which guarantees more targeted and fruitful talks. To sum up, the thorough research conducted by Atlassian illuminates the difficulties caused by meeting overload and inefficiency in the contemporary workplace, especially in India.
Their goal is to empower organizations to improve meeting effectiveness and, in turn, overall productivity and employee well-being by providing useful solutions and utilizing cutting-edge tools.