Company Meetings Lose Time to Broadband and WiFi Problems

A new Research Without Barriers survey of 1,000 UK workers who attend meetings, which was commissioned by online print and design firm MOO, has claimed that 20 minutes out of each 1 hour (average) meeting is “wasted company time” (agreed by 90% of respondents) and 4.6 minutes of that stems from WiFi or internet problems.

The survey claims we are “extremely unproductive” when it comes to meetings, not least due to poor timekeeping and small talk, but also due to connectivity problems etc.

On average, up to 5 minutes (4.6) is allegedly spent fixing WiFi / connectivity issues which prominently effects 36% of those in Yorkshire, 35% in the South West, 32% in East Anglia and 31% in Midlands, North West and Wales respectively. This drops to 28% in London, 23% in the wider South East, 22% in North East and 20% in Scotland.

Mind you the survey also suggests that for 38% simply choosing where to sit can also take about 5 minutes (I’ve never seen it take anything like that long myself), while 34% said they can spend up to 10 minutes discussing and adjusting the temperature of a meeting room before they’re ready to start (clearly management could do a better job here).

The main reasons people are wasting time in meetings

Waiting for people to arrive (90%)

Setting up technology (70%)

Dialling in to a conference call or waiting for others to dial in (59%)

Locating the meeting room (55%)

Connectivity issues (51%)

The number of meetings workers are expected to attend on a daily basis also presents challenges to both company and individual productivity, with 63% of Brits attending at least one meeting a day and a third (36%) attending between two and four.

Finally, 10% admit to spending between 9 and 14 hours per week in meetings, although this varies wildly across professions. Those working in human resources spend an average of six hours of their working week in meetings (obviously that’s part of the job), while retail, catering and leisure workers spend almost half this amount (3.6 hours) during an average week.