We spend over half our week in meetings. Here’s why a 'meeting-free day' could be the answer.

All workers know there is nothing worse than a meeting, just for the sake of a meeting. It's tedious – not to mention a major time waster when you have a thousand other things on your to-do list.

Robyn has worked in nursing for decades, and in her experience, the number of meetings she has to attend has risen dramatically over the past few years. With at least three hours of every eight-hour shift being spent in meetings, she feels it takes too much time away from her core responsibilities, leaving her to stay back at work for an hour or two to actually get her job done.

She's not the only one.

Rachael is in the economics and finance field, and she too thinks as though her whole workday gets swamped with various meetings – some far less important than others.

For Jasmine, who works with the law and courts system, she wishes there was more stability and communication around meetings. Namely, a more clearly defined agenda at the start of each catch-up, so that it's short, sharp and sweet. Because no one loves a waffly meeting!

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Nicole – who works in research – just today had six meetings, totalling in about five and half hours of her day gone. 

And for Julie, who is in the higher education sector, she wishes that her mountain of meetings would result in progress. But more often than not, it leads to very little tangible action.

Each of these women's experiences echoes what research tells us. 

New data published in The Australian shows that the average professional spends more than half their work week in meetings. That's almost 22 hours in meetings each week – which has increased by more than seven hours since the pandemic began.

And from a productivity perspective, too many work meetings can be detrimental. 

As one study found, meetings have become "productivity sinkholes" that can damage morale, be unproductive and sap the energy of talented staff and managers. And no one wants that!

So what can we actually do to fix it?

A number of companies across the globe have begun to ban all meetings for one specific day each week – think of it as a meeting-free Friday if you will. And the results have been astounding.

Cyril Peupion leads a company called Work Smarter, Live Better, which liaises with big corporate clients to help make their work environments better for employees.

"Our clients are typically leaders in a team of super smart and high-performing people. And a lot of the staff say they are feeling swamped. The big question is do we have too many meetings? And the short answer is yes," Cyril explained on Mamamia's 8 Minutes to Change Your (Work) Life podcast.

"We have clients from across 19 countries – and the vast majority complain about meetings. A lot of leaders spend about 72 per cent of their working time in meetings. There's an issue with the volume of meetings, and the pandemic exacerbated that because we found the joy (and ease) of video meetings."

According to many, a meeting-free day per week could be the answer to our problems. But would it really make enough of an impact?

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A few years ago, a US company called Best Buy decided to tackle this issue head-on by enacting that Wednesdays were a meeting-free day across the company. 

They stuck with this process for many months, and over the course of the trial, established a list of pros and cons.

The pros were that on Wednesdays, everyone in the company recorded a higher level of productivity and engagement. But on the two days following that meeting-free day, morale slipped back down. Interestingly, the amount of meetings per week hadn't changed. Rather, the ones usually on a Wednesday were shimmied to the following days – meaning no one particularly looked forward to Thursdays or Fridays at Best Buy!

Cyril said a lot can be learned from this example.

"Two HR women at Best Buy had a bit of an idea – they thought, well maybe the issue is not with meetings, maybe it's our relationship with time. So they tried an experiment called 'Results Only Environment'. They told staff to manage their time however they wanted – they could come and go into the office at whatever time they liked, or work from home. They were also told that not all meetings were mandatory," Cyril explained.

"The only thing HR asked was that the staff's performance levels remain the same. What they saw was a dramatic rise in performance, productivity and engagement."

Of course not all workplaces can perfectly mould themselves to this model – but for those who have more flexibility, it's well worth considering. Because meetings for the sake of meetings, and meetings without a clearly defined purpose, can do more harm than good. 

"Prioritise meetings based on impact – the ones that aren't as focused on long-term impact can be readdressed or reconsidered."

As one CEO wrote for Forbes: "If the no-meeting day was created to provide employees more focused time for work, the next step is to improve and reduce the number of meetings that they do attend."

So managers and business leaders if you're reading this – now's the time to cut back on the meetings!

How do you feel about a meeting-free day? Let us know in the comments below.

Feature Image: Getty.