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Meetings are Biggest Time-waster says Survey

A nationwide survey among 200 managers has revealed that the biggest time-waster in the office is the meeting - according to 40% of respondents.

The survey was organized by top training company PTP Training & Marketing who have a training center in Solihull to find out what are the key time-wasters and savers in today’s business climate. ‘Pointless meetings’ was followed by ‘unwanted phone calls’ mentioned by a quarter of the sample. ‘Going through emails’ and ‘administration’ were also recognised as eating into valuable work time.

Over three quarters (77%) of managers taking part in the survey claim to waste up to five hours each week in unproductive meetings and an additional 20% put this figure at between five and ten hours. This compares to 70% of respondents saying they waste up to five hours going through emails every week; 73% frittering away up to three hours a week on unwanted phone calls and a third of the sample believing they spend between eight and ten hours every week undertaking admin duties. In real terms this means the average manager could be spending at least two days a week locked into non-productive tasks.

Despite the high numbers of emails most managers have to plough through, it is the email which is proclaimed as the best time saver in the office and the preferred method of communication. Just under 60% of managers say the email is the most effective time saver ahead of the telephone, and in particular, conference calls which is mentioned by 36% of the sample.

Forty five per cent agree that email is also the best way to communicate with others beating the telephone (32%) and the meeting (28%). It is a sign of the times where the poor old letter only gains four per cent of the vote as the best communication method and the fax which was seen as state of the art communication fifteen years ago now commands just one per cent of the vote.

Interestingly while text messaging is well used outside the business environment – it is not considered a business tool. None of the sample cited it as their preferred way to communicate with business colleagues.

Commenting on the results, PTP’s managing director, Marc Holland says:

“It’s easy to see why meetings top the list of office time-wasters and can be totally non-productive. All too often time and effort is wasted by attending meetings, which have no clear purpose and often result in poor decision-making. Everyone who organizes meetings should plan to make them as effective as possible. There are a number of benefits well-planned face-to face meetings have over remote communication such as email and telephone. Done well they can be the best way to action items and reach decisions. They are also the best way to build up client relationships.”

19th October 2005