Do You Know What Meetings Cost??

A recent post on Seth Godin’s Blog proposed making meetings more expensive to give companies an incentive to have fewer, better organized meetings, a topic that apparently resonated since it was Tweeted over 1000 times.

I enjoyed the post but couldn’t help reflecting that meetings are already expensive because no matter how efficient or necessary a meeting is, people are getting paid to sit there instead of doing other stuff.

What does a meeting cost?  There are several ways to calculate this.  You could do a straight (hourly salary * # hours) calculation for all participants then tack on travel, facilities and refreshments.  Or you could get more creative:

“I once amused myself by estimating the per pound cost of a two hour meeting.  There were twenty-two knowledge workers in the room and I decided that on average they earned about $120K, weighed 155 lbs and worked about 50 hours a week.  After various calculations, I concluded that this meeting was costing $2200 plus food, or approximately .65 cents a pound.”  (Source: Collaboration, $1.99/Lb)

As a former consulting project manager, it’s always amazing to me how many companies ignore how fixed salaries are allocated to work, especially given that American productivity is at an all-time low.  There are some obvious culprits, such as burn out and increased complexity, but also cited is the habit of throwing too many people at every problem. 

It’s called ‘collaboration.’  Done well, it can achieve creative breakthroughs and create a feeling of involvement.  Done poorly, it fritters away both salary and capacity. 

Harvard Business Review wrote a post about why we secretly love meetings: 1) People enjoy the social contact; 2) they keep everyone in the loop; and 3) being included equates to status. 

All of these reasons are flawed from a business perspective: 1) There are better ways to socialize; 2) only attendees are in the loop; and 3) being productive creates more business value than being seen.

Whether or not you agree with me, the workforce is rapidly expanding to include more remote and contingent workers.   That means that companies are going to have to find cheaper, more effective ways than meetings to collaborate if they want to be successful. 

Some tips for reducing meeting deadweight:

1. Have fewer meetings – Is a meeting really necessary or would a short written status update do as well?
2. Have a clear topic owner - This person should do the basic groundwork before bringing in a room full of people and also be empowered to make final decisions.
3. Invite fewer people – Who really needs to be there?  I mean, really?
4. Take notes and share them with a wider group of stakeholders - You expand your collaborative reach that way without pulling people away from their own work.
5. Invest in some proper collaboration tools - Don't email documents, meeting notes and responses around the company or before you know it, you'll need a meeting.
6. Get a life – The team meeting shouldn’t be your main social event. 

The catch: As the workforce continues to disperse, the written word will be the key to effective day-to-day collaboration.  However, this shift will require professionals to read faster and write more clearly and concisely than most of them do today. 

In the perfect world that I am envisioning, no one will ever again have to read (or be allowed to write) a ten-page status report or a rambling topic synopsis consisting mainly of technical acronyms. 

Bottom line: If you don't control your meetings they'll control you.

Picture courtesy of youwillneverfind.us.

Laura Schroeder is a Compensation Strategist at Workday, headquartered in Pleasanton, CA.  She has nearly fifteen years of experience designing, developing, implementing and evangelizing global Human Capital Management (HCM) solutions and holds a certificate in Strategic Human Resources Practices from Cornell University.  Her articles and interviews on HCM topics have been published in the US, Europe and Asia.  She lives in Munich, Germany and enjoys cooking, reading, writing, kick boxing and spending time with friends and family. If you want to read more from Laura, check out her talent management blog Working Girl or follow her on Twitter @WorkGal.

Comments

[Drew Hawkins]

I think it's borderline universal that meetings can get out of hand and take even longer than necessary. Saw that Mayor Bloomberg is installing a count up clock to keep his meetings short. Seems like a good idea! With a time limit, priorities will be addressed over frivolous things.

[Dan Walter]

I think I would ad two things to your "deadweight reduction" list.

1. Have a clear objective for the meeting. This should be a reason why each person MUST attend and something they can take away to make something about the business better. If a person is not getting something from the meeting that pushes the business forward, then they should not attend.

2. Assign post-meeting objectives to everyone in attendance. If you don't have some type of follow-up, then you probably didn't need t attend.

[E James (Jim) Brennan]

Make all meetings "stand-up". They get shorter when no one is allowed to sit down and get comfortable.

[Laura Schroeder]

Drew - Clocks are good, especially with a timer. If you can't say what you have to say in under a minute BEEP! Organize your thoughts better.

Dan - Well, there are people you invite for permission, input or forgiveness, who don't necessarily leave with a to do. But in general I agree that if you aren't part of the work don't come for the donuts.

Jim - That would totally work. You are an organizational genius!

[Donna]

As part of my graduate school work last semester, I spent 75 hours following behind the Director of Nursing in our community hospital. I attended meeting upon meeting, with all of the nursing management team in attendance for most of them. Although the time spent was beneficial and enabled me to get the big picture on nursing management, I was amazed at the hours spent in meetings. The same faces, day after day, discussing the same subjects. Towards the end of the semester, in yet another meeting to discuss the results of the hospital's employee satisfaction survey, management learned that there was, in fact, quite a bit of employee dissatisfaction. As it turned out, the primary cause of dissatisfaction among employees was "my manager is rarely present in the workplace, and does not listen to me." Now granted I'm only the graduate student in a room full of managers receiving these results, but I thought to myself, I guess they're not in touch...they are in MEETINGS!! I couldn't help but think of the impact it would have on employees, in this particular case, nurses, if their direct managers were present on the unit, providing support and serving as a resource. If less time were spent in meetings, and more time was spent engaged with their employees day to day experiences, what a great experiment it would be.