Arbeitszeit: Teuer und ineffizient? So viel hat Ihr letztes Meeting gekostet

In Germany, 64 billion Euros are wasted annually on inefficient meetings, according to Doodle's "State of Meetings Report 2019". When adjusted for inflation, this figure roughly equates to 80 billion Euros. The Trade Newspaper allows users to calculate the cost of meetings using a new calculator, including an estimate of the meeting's inefficiency.

The key factor considered for estimating meeting inefficiency is the number of participants, as supported by a Microsoft research study utilizing online meetings. This study, considered one of the largest in its field, found a strong correlation between perceived inclusivity and efficiency of meetings, with the number of participants being the largest influence on inclusivity and meeting efficiency.

Meetings with two or three participants are perceived as inclusive by over 90% of respondents, while meetings with six or more participants drop to 67% and those with more than 15 participants to just one-third. Lev Tankelevitch, one of the study authors, explains that fewer people do not automatically make a better meeting; however, everyone must understand why they are participating.

Smaller meetings provide clearer reasons for participation and greater satisfaction. Some companies have established strict rules for meeting sizes. Amazon's Jeff Bezos limits meetings to the number of people that can be fed with two pizzas, i.e., eight people. Bayer follows a similar approach. Nisha Mahendrarajan from Bayer's core team for meeting culture emphasizes that if one cannot contribute to or gain value from a meeting, they should be allowed to leave early.

Many employees were surprised when they were told how much the company could save if everyone spent an hour less in meetings weekly. This amounts to 124 million Euros, a significant amount to save. Efficient meetings are thus deemed crucial. Apart from the number of participants, other factors that influence meeting efficiency include having an agenda, starting and ending on time.

Companies like Microsoft have aligned their meeting guidelines with these insights and are publishing similar catalogs within their conglomerates. The meeting calculator does not provide an indisputable calculated truth about office exchanges but aims to support a well-known question with scientific evidence: Is this meeting really necessary?

Or could a simple email suffice? The Trade Newspaper notes that such a reduction in meeting time has never been achieved in the German economy.