This is how much unproductive meetings are costing the UK’s economy
As the summer holidays have wound up, this week has been beset by a distinct "back to school" atmosphere.
But for us big kids in the world of work this has meant not just returning to our jobs, but also to those many, many meetings.
We might tell ourselves the minutes of sitting around, verbally faffing and not doing anything useful don't add up, but research from office technology group Altodigital has some alarming news to the contrary.
Read more: Meetings take up two years of our lives
The time that accrues in unproductive meetings costs the UK economy £582m each week, while 95 per cent of respondents to Altodigital's study said meetings regularly overrun – some by as much as an hour.
More than two-thirds of the 1,000 office workers polled said they regularly hold at least five meetings a week.
Read more: Four reasons you're running team meetings all wrong
Almost one in three said flat-out that they regularly attend "unnecessary" team chatter sessions.
Meetings are an alluring illusion of efficiency and "outcomes", but really do us little good.
Make your excuses, people, and leave. Or at the very least – stick to your timetable.
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