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Meetings? Don’t Waste my Time!

Judging by the results of the most recent PTP Survey time wasting is a key issue in today’s business climate. Meetings are no longer the essential communication tool they once were and came top in our list of the worst time waster in the office. Almost 4 out of 10 people find them unwarranted, and 35% of workers felt that they spent 2 – 3 hours a week in pointless conferences. This was followed by unnecessary admin eating into their time where a third of the sample believed that they wasted over ten hours of their week on administrative tasks.

So what was the preferred communication tool and the best time saver? Certainly the old fashioned letter is overlooked and preference is given to the telephone with nearly 40% of managers using it as their main communication tool. However this lagged slightly behind email with 45% opting to use this as the best way to communicate.

Fifty eight per cent also believed email to be the best time saver in the workplace. Other good ways to time included “good delegation” “decent reporting” and having a “good contact management system”. Overall communication was most effective when more than one method was used, such as a “meeting followed with an email summary”.

Texting was completely disregarded and not seen as a professional mode of communication.

Thank you to all the people that responded to our survey on time wasting and saving. Here are the full results:

Almost 4 out of 10 people felt that attending pointless meetings was the worst time waster in the office
1 out of 4 believed that taking unwanted phone calls wasted the most time

Other time wasting activities included:
Sending and receiving emails - 17%
Useless administration - 12%

24% of respondents lost up to 2 hours per week going through emails
34% lost up to 2 hours per week on unwanted telephone calls
35% spent up to 3 hours per week attending pointless meetings
32% spent 10 plus hours per week on administration

Over half of employees believed email to be the best time saver in the office. The telephone followed as the second best time saver with 22%
14% saved time by using conference calls
10% saved time by using other communication methods
0% used texting

Well over half of people use email as their preferred method of communication
32% of people preferred the telephone
28% preferred meetings
4% preferred letters
1% preferred fax