We’ve talked a lot here at LessMeeting about how better meetings will save your company time & money. While those are great objectives in their own right, today we’re going to be selfish. It’s now time to talk about making your life better.
“Work-Life Balance” is one of the familiar holy grails of the corporate world. Yet a recent Microsoft office productivity survey(1) of over 38,000 employees found that still over 60% of Americans don’t have work-life balance, and being unproductive contributes to this feeling. And while productivity impacts work-life balance, a staggering 71% of respondents think meetings aren’t productive! So improving meeting quality can make your work life better.
71% of workers think their meetings aren’t productive!
Fortunately a pair of Creighton University Meeting Effectiveness studies(2) points us in the right direction on how to address this problem. First, they concluded that each of the following meeting traits will directly increase meeting quality:
- Meeting starts & ends on time
- Meeting is appropriately sized; not too many attendees
- There is a formal agenda (accessible prior to the meeting)
Addressing these factors will have a positive impact on meeting quality.
In a second study they investigated how meetings impact employee satisfaction. The results were clear: meeting satisfaction is a key component to happiness in the work place.
In a nut shell, making a few simple improvements to your meeting like creating detailed agendas, inviting the right attendees, and staying on time & on track will result in better, more productive meetings, and in turn a better work-life balance and job satisfaction.
These studies prove that better meetings will result in a higher job satisfaction!
Now if only there was a tool out there that did some of these things……
1) https://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2005/mar05/03-15threeproductivedayspr.mspx
2-1) http://www.drallenos.com/media/Cohen,%20Rogelberg,%20Allen%20&%20Luong,%202011.pdf
2-2) http://www.drallenos.com/media/Rogelberg%20et%20al.,%202010.pdf
