Let’s Talk Business
Dr Tim Baker Managing Director WINNERS AT WORK Pty Ltd
www.winnersatwork.com.au www.about.me/tim.baker
MINDLESS BLOODY MEETINGS
Telephone. +61 7 3899 8881
Editor’s Note:
were $69,165 per annum in 2012
Tim is an international consultant, successful author, keynote speaker, master trainer, executive coach, university lecturer and skilful facilitator.
(according to the Australian Bureau of
In a nutshell, he has conducted over 2,430 seminars, workshops and keynote addresses to over 45,000 people in 11 countries across 21 industry groups.
Statistics). That amounts to an hourly rate on average of just over $33. $33 times 384 hours is $12,672 of costs associated with meetings per employee on average. Photo from smh.com.au
Let's say that you are working in a SME of 150 employees. Based on
It
is
what
happens
between
meetings that counts.
Most meetings are a waste of time.
these figures meetings are costing your
As a business owner or manager, have
organisation $1.9M a year.
you ever calculated the cost of meetings
If that expenditure was a line item in
in your organisation? Are you getting a
the balance sheet as a sub-heading
good return on investment for your
under payroll, any manager worth his
meetings?
or her salt would question that item on
Consider this: the average employee
the basis of whether the company was
Anyway, the bottom line is that we
probably spends four hours a week in
getting a good return on investing in
all attend too many meetings, that
meetings of some kind. Based on a 40
meetings.
the meetings often add little value
hour work week, that's 10% of time
What's the answer?
spent in meetings.
Well there are two possible answers,
In actual fact it is 20%. While attending these meetings, employees can't be doing
other
productive
work,
or
someone else is doing their work for them. So every hour in meetings is potentially two hours lost. Take four weeks for holidays out of the equation, that's 48 weeks working times eight hours in meetings per week; a total of 384 hours in meetings every year. Average full-time earnings in Australia Web: www.b2bbs.com.au
or a combination of the two. One is to reduce the number of mindless meetings in your department or organisation. Another answer is to make sure that those who run these meetings have the necessary skills to make the meetings as productive as possible. However, making meetings productive is a misnomer. Meetings themselves
Many employees send emails on issues that should be discussed in meetings. And many meetings are a procession of reports that could be communicated via email.
and are often poorly run. You are probably reading this article between meetings, or worse still, during a meeting. As a business owner or manager, I suggest you have a serious look at the meetings you have in your organisation as means of increasing productivity. I have to scoot, I have a meeting to attend ...
cannot be productive. Email: dennis@b2bbs.com.au
Mobile: 0451 184 599
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