The Future of Meetings Report 2021
Learn how 530+ leaders (including managers at Shopify, HubSpot, Twilio, Medium, and Lightspeed) are embracing remote work and what the current state of meetings looks like.
This report outlines best practices to help you increase meeting efficiency, as well as our predictions for the future of meetings.
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With insights from 530+ leaders at
“Always have a designated meeting facilitator that drives the meeting. This need not be the manager and avoid having subject matter experts run the meeting. Finally, leave 5-10 minutes at the end for collecting action items and parking lot item owners.”
Charlie Gilkey
Author of Start Finishing
“If a company-wide meeting attended by five hundred employees isn’t engaging and memorable, then the company will have
wasted five hundred people-hours – ten thousands dollars if you assume a twenty-dollar-per-person hourly wage.”Julie Zhuo
Author of The Making of a Manager and former VP at Facebook“There are certain meetings that are just more amenable to being asynchronized and stand-ups are a great example. We encourage people to put a block of time in their calendar that works for them, to provide the updates asynchronously.”
Darren Murph
Head of Remote at Gitlab“If I didn’t have one-on-one meetings, I wouldn’t see my teammates. I’d be working with avatars. It can happen that you forget, there’s actually
people behind the screens… that they have families… that they work in the middle of their house when a pandemic is happening.”Marcus Wermuth
Engineering Manager at Buffer
The state of meetings
At the one year anniversary of the shift to remote work, the way we work, collaborate, and communicate has irrevocably evolved.
A key change has been an increase in the number of meetings attended. We now have an average of 13 meetings per week, and even more for leaders, with 49% of Directors attending up to 21 meetings a week.
The cost of meetings
Meetings come at a cost, which is why we calculated just how much that time is costing your company.
Our research shows that meetings are costing companies between $43,008 – $56,448 USD per manager every year.
Meeting productivity
Great meetings can be a driving force for productivity, but there are steps to be taken before, during and after a meeting to optimize this time!
78% of people who use a meeting management tool like Fellow say that their meetings usually have a clear purpose.
Meeting in a remote world
With the world transitioning to remote-first, meeting habits and best practices evolved as well. Too many meetings can be overwhelming but team bonding is important too. We discuss how to achieve a healthy balance and more!
36.8% of respondents never heard of asynchronous meetings before.
The state of one-on-one meetings
A one-on-one is a dedicated space to discuss strengths, weaknesses and provide feedback- things that wouldn’t be ideal in a public space or team meeting.
14.28% of people don’t have weekly or biweekly one-on-one meetings.
Inclusion in meetings
We know that the work towards inclusion isn’t nearly done yet, but asking important questions to provide perspective is a good start.
64% of people said that one of their meeting pet peeves is “one person dominating the conversation”.
