A recent report revealed that a significant percentage of workers experience anxiety when attending daily work meetings.
- The report, titled ‘Zoomed In, Zoned Out’, highlights the attitudes of hybrid and remote workers towards business meetings.
- 39% of respondents strongly agreed they felt anxious, while 42% somewhat agreed, indicating widespread concern.
- The lack of perceived value and inadequate preparation contribute to meeting-related anxiety.
- There’s a pressing need for better communication tools and strategies in the workplace.
The recent ‘Zoomed In, Zoned Out’ report has illuminated a growing concern among hybrid and remote workers regarding the anxiety they feel towards daily work meetings. According to the findings, 39% of respondents strongly agreed with feeling anxious, while another 42% somewhat agreed. The sentiment was shared among both managers and team members, with 83% of managers and 71% of team members acknowledging these feelings.
The feeling of obtaining limited value from meetings was pronounced, with 25% of workers expressing they found no value in their recent meetings. Furthermore, 66% felt they contributed little value themselves during meetings. This lack of value perception is linked to the fact that only 22% of respondents attended meetings fully prepared, suggesting a deficiency in effective planning and organisation within teams and organisations.
In addition, the study revealed that 72% of respondents had participated in at least one meeting in the past fortnight that could have been an email or written communication instead. Moreover, 60% of participants believed that their weekly meeting hours could be reduced through written status updates and asynchronous communication tools.
A spokesperson for the report emphasized the necessity for organisations to reconsider their communication methods, as many respondents did not find their meetings efficient or qualitative. ‘Our new report highlights the need for a large number of teams and organisations to rethink how they communicate and share information and ideas across their businesses,’ the spokesperson stated. Notably, 74% of survey respondents suggested that shared written status updates could significantly reduce meeting hours.
Moreover, there is a clear preference for collaboration tools that facilitate asynchronous communication, with 70% of respondents desiring these methods to be implemented. These insights underline a critical need for developing more efficient and less anxiety-inducing meeting strategies, which has not been met by the majority of businesses even in 2023.
These findings demonstrate the urgent need to reformulate workplace communication strategies to alleviate meeting-related anxieties and enhance productivity.
