Employee Says She Can't Get Any Work Done At Her Full-Time Job After Having 4 Hours Of Meetings In A Day
She has no desire to get any work done.
DimaBerlin / Shutterstock There are pros and cons to having company meetings — while some are necessary to plan work and get updates, many are a total waste of time.
As a matter of fact, every year about 24 billion hours are wasted on unproductive meetings, according to a survey by Zippia.
37% of employees consider unproductive meetings to be the highest cost to their organization.
A TikToker named Emily found out first-hand how disruptive meetings can be to the workday.
She shared a video talking about her personal experience in trying to balance her workload and attending meetings.
She believes it is impossible for anyone to spend a big part of their day in meetings and still do their job.
The video is captioned “The corporate world is one big lie. Dealing with meetings all day and staying productive is impossible.”
In the short clip, Emily explained that she always wondered how people who are required to be in meetings all the time managed their daily work.
The answer came when she recently got into a role that made it necessary for her to have back to back-to-back meetings.
According to Emily, “They f--king don’t.”
The TikToker tells viewers that she had just finished four hours of meetings and has no desire whatsoever to get back to work.
She goes on to say that anyone claiming that they have the bandwidth to participate in meeting after meeting and still be productive at work is “lying.”
People in the comments from various professions agree that meetings have a big impact on productivity.
One woman posted, “This is what it’s like being a teacher. It’s like one giant day-long meeting.”
Another person seemed to imply that upper management used meetings to pass on the workload.
She commented, “[Because] a lot of them aren’t working managers, they are just managers. They leave meetings and delegate all the task items to subordinates.”
She might have a point — the average employee participates in eight or more meetings every week.
That only increases as people move up the ladder in seniority with executives in attendance at over twelve meetings every week.
The numbers don’t lie — meetings that take place during work hours are not bringing the value that employers believe they are.
According to Zippia, 65% of employees believe that meetings get in the way of them completing their work in a timely fashion, causing them to work more hours to catch up and eventually leading to burnout.
No matter how valuable employers think the meetings are, 41% of employees that are supposed to be tuned in end up multitasking and only take in a fraction of the information being delivered.
Organizations can benefit from setting a strict meeting agenda, starting on time, ending on time, and leaving everyone who attended with a call to action and a method of accountability.
If it can be sent in an email or discussed in a quick phone call, people’s calendars need not be cluttered with time-wasting engagements.
Contrary to what some people in leadership think, no one really looks forward to coming together so you can hear yourself talk, no matter who you are.
NyRee Ausler is a writer from Seattle, Washington, and author of seven books. She covers lifestyle and entertainment and news, as well as navigating the workplace and social issues.