As the owner of a small business, you want your meetings to be as productive as possible. Bad meetings are not only a waste of time, but they can also be a waste of money. Here a few ways that irrelevant, useful meetings waste you money.
Unproductive Use of Time
The main reason bad meetings are such a waste of money is their unproductive use of time. According to a consulting firm, Get a Klu, the average professional loses about 30 working hours each month due to bad meetings. This is the equivalent of about of four full work days. You pay your employees for these 30 hours every month, but you get absolutely nothing productive out of the exchange. Therefore, to ensure you get your money’s value, you should ensure that all meetings are productive.
Even if your meetings do go over relevant topics, you should keep in mind that about 75 percent of employees tend to unrelated tasks during meetings and about 40 percent admit to dozing off during meetings.
Calculating the Cost of Meetings
In order to determine just how much bad meetings are costing you, there are a number of tools you can use.
One tool you can use is called Meet or Die. With this tool, you can enter various details about a specific meeting. You will receive an estimated cost that will show you how much money is being invested into the meeting rather than in the workplace, where work will actually get done.
Another tool you can use is the MeetingCalc, which is somewhat easier to manipulate. This iPhone app will use data such as the number of people in the room and hourly wages to calculate the cost of a meeting. You can expect the costs to be somewhere in the thousands or even ten thousands.
As you can see, making your meetings as productive as possible should be the top priority.
Have a particularly important meeting coming up? Hiring a facilitator to direct your meeting will ensure the time and money invested in the meetings are well-spent. Call Leadership Strategies today to learn more!
