Are meetings a waste of time?

If you've ever sat in a conference room (or on a Zoom call) wondering why you're there, you're not alone. A growing body of research suggests that meetings have become one of the biggest drains on workplace productivity, costing companies thousands of dollars per employee and leaving workers exhausted, frustrated, and unable to complete their actual work.

The staggering cost of meeting overload

A survey of more than 1,000 people working across various industries by Software Finder found that one in two believes nearly half their meetings are a complete waste of time. But the problem goes beyond mere annoyance. The average worker loses $6,280 annually to unnecessary meetings, while tech employees waste an average of 169 hours per year, costing nearly $10,000 per person.

The financial impact is only part of the story. Seventy-two percent of workers overall report experiencing "meeting fatigue," with Gen Z feeling it most acutely - an exhaustion that doesn't just impact individual performance but erodes engagement, increases burnout, and impacts retention.

Why meetings have spiraled out of control

The shift to hybrid and remote work has made the problem worse. It's become so easy to get people into a video conference that meetings are sucking up more time and energy than before the pandemic. With a simple calendar invite, managers can pull entire teams away from focused work, often without considering whether that meeting is truly necessary.

More than half the workforce believes much of their time in meetings is wasted, creating what amounts to a real productivity crisis. When employees don't feel their presence is necessary, they respond predictably: multitasking, disengaging, and keeping their cameras off. This behavior signals a deeper problem: meetings have become defaults rather than deliberate choices.

The real work gets pushed aside

Perhaps most concerning is how meetings disrupt the flow of actual productive work. This constant context-switching prevents employees from entering the deep focus states necessary for complex problem-solving and creative thinking. When meetings dictate the structure of each day instead of time for "real work" taking priority, employees struggle to complete their core responsibilities.

The ripple effects are significant. Workers leave meetings without clear action items, meetings spawn follow-up meetings, and employees regularly need to work overtime to make up for time spent in unproductive gatherings - turning what should be collaborative sessions into obstacles that extend the workday.

What makes a meeting actually worth attending?

Not all meetings are created equal. The distinction between productive and unproductive gatherings often comes down to a few key factors.

Kacy Fleming, a workplace strategist and organizational psychologist who created and ran a global initiative at Takeda Pharmaceuticals called "Making Meetings Matter," recommends a simple rule: "No agenda, no attenda". Agendas help keep meetings on track and ensure everyone understands why they're there.

Before scheduling a meeting, ask yourself if the task could be handled asynchronously with an email, Google doc, or quick phone call. Meetings should be reserved for making decisions and moving work forward, not simply reading out information that could have been shared through other channels.

What you aim to accomplish in the meeting should be stated upfront in the meeting invite. If there isn't a clear outcome, there's no need to meet. This simple principle alone could eliminate a significant portion of unnecessary gatherings.

Solutions that are actually working

Forward-thinking companies are experimenting with radical approaches to reclaim their employees' time. Shopify made headlines by deleting nearly 10,000 events from employee calendars in a massive reset. Other organizations have implemented "no-meeting" days (Wednesdays and Fridays are popular choices), giving employees protected time for focused work.

Fleming recommends reducing the time of meetings to 25 and 50 minutes (from a half-hour and hour), starting and stopping on time, and allowing for 5-10 minutes between scheduled meetings to give employees time to recharge. These small adjustments can dramatically improve both meeting quality and employee energy levels throughout the day.

The key is empowering employees to be strategic about their time. Organizations should create an open and communicative culture where employees feel comfortable declining meetings they deem unnecessary. Assigning roles and responsibilities keeps everyone involved and prevents meeting fatigue, particularly among Gen Z team members.

Rethinking how we collaborate

The solution isn't necessarily to eliminate all meetings; collaboration is essential for most modern work. But it does require a fundamental shift in how we think about synchronous versus asynchronous communication.

Gen Z's heightened meeting fatigue signals a potential mismatch between workplace norms and the expectations of younger employees who value asynchronous communication and outcome-focused collaboration over the way things have traditionally been done. This generational perspective offers valuable insights for reimagining workplace collaboration across all age groups.

The bottom line? Meeting culture wasn't created overnight and won't disappear anytime soon. But with half of meetings delivering questionable value and costing thousands of dollars per worker every year, rethinking it isn't optional - it's essential. By being more intentional about when to meet, who needs to attend, and what outcomes we're trying to achieve, we can transform meetings from productivity killers into the focused, purposeful collaboration sessions they should be. As Fleming notes, with employee engagement in decline, "it's past time to end toxic meeting culture".