Eileen Dooley is a talent and leadership development specialist, and a leadership coach, based in Calgary
Ever walk away from a meeting and think it was a complete waste of time: another hour of your life that you’ll never get back?
Most people I talk to say the biggest time suck of their workday is meetings. What’s worse is the often-automatic default of scheduling them for an hour.
Inevitably, the awkward moment comes when there’s nothing left to discuss, but still 15 minutes left in the scheduled meeting. Instead of ending the meeting, the leader opens it up to “anything else” someone wants to talk about. There go the 15 minutes – if not more.
Individual contributors in Canada spend almost 20 per cent of their time, or the equivalent of one full day a week, in meetings, according to a 2024 report by note-taking software company Fellow. Managers spend more than 35 per cent of their time in meetings.
A 2018 report by Robert Half shows that, on average, workers feel a quarter of meeting time is wasted. When asked about common issues, 58 per cent said the meeting was unnecessary because it could have been handled by e-mail.
Then there are weekly set meetings, usually scheduled without an agenda or purpose other than to meet. Some technology companies, such as Shopify, Aurora and Basecamp, don’t allow standing meetings and have strict rules about which kinds of meetings are allowed and how many people can take part. Shopify limits many meetings to no more than two people, claiming the more people in a meeting, the less actually gets done.
The most common standing meeting is the one-on-one, usually held weekly, between leaders and their direct reports, the number of which can really add up depending on how employees they oversee.
They’re also expensive when you consider the cost per worker. An employee making $120,000 per year costs about $62 per hour. And that is not including benefits or other costs the employee incurs, not to mention the cost of the meeting room. Five people meeting for an hour at the same rate, that’s $310 for the talent in the room for that one hour alone.
What are the chances that meeting will generate $310 in revenue for the company?
If we all came to a meeting with an hourly rate attached to our foreheads, participants may think carefully about how they spend their time. Consider that if the leader is making $200,000 ($104 per hour) a year and the employee is making $120,000 a year, a regular one-on-one meeting is costing $166 an hour, or $664 each month for that weekly one-hour meeting. Times that by six direct reports, and we have $3,984 per month in time spent just on the regular, one-hour one-on-one meetings.
With that in mind, we should all strive to make the most of our one-on-ones. Here’s some advice:
- Understand the purpose. Make this time meaningful for both the leader and employee by understanding what each of you wants to get out of it. It will be different for each employee. Push back if the leader or employee tells you the purpose is to catch up. There should be a distinct purpose. Most project updates can be done by e-mail. What does the employee need from the leader that they can’t get through text to help them do their job?
- Consider the timeframe: Think carefully about the frequency and length of the one-on-one meeting. Scheduling it weekly screams micromanaging, especially if it’s an hour. At most, try biweekly, for 30 minutes, again, with a clear purpose. If the employee has an urgent matter, they should be able to get the leader’s attention before the next meeting. After all, fewer meetings with direct reports will free up the leader’s time to deal with urgent matters.
- Do prep work to keep it efficient: Each one-on-one should have some level of preparation. An upcoming project to discuss, a request from the leader or the employee, new company information – whatever it is, the leader and employee should have reviewed the relevant information to make the time as productive and possible. This requires preparation, something we should all do before any meeting.
- Take control: Whether you are a leader or direct report, take the initiative to get control of the one-on-one. Get comfortable with repurposing and redesigning this time. If companies want to get their money’s worth out of people, then look no further than the real cost of regular meetings without a purpose.