In a day where nearly eight out of every ten employees prefer to take their meetings virtually, it can be a drag for them when they are pulled into face-to-face meetings, despite probably routinely doing them not so long ago. In this month’s newsletter, we will discuss the scenario that has people freaked out about being in physical meetings and if they are actually productive as compared to their virtual counterparts.
You’d think that if the purpose of the meetings are the same, then the meetings themselves will be at the very least similar, but there are some distinct differences between the way people prepare for a virtual meeting as compared to an in-person meeting. Since remote work has been a major issue for employers, there have been several studies conducted about meeting productivity and they have a lot of interesting findings. Let’s take a look at some of the differences between productivity and virtual meetings.
In terms of virtual meetings, they best serve your business when there are fewer members in them. Studies show that as the number of people meeting virtually increases, the chance for unproductive meetings increases. In fact, productivity goes down drastically over five people in a virtual meeting. This should tell you that you need to keep your meetings specific.
It’s no secret that most meetings that you have today are done virtually. This isn’t just from the work-from-home crowd. Three out of five respondents say that they have at least two virtual internal meetings while at the office. The study didn’t say whether or not other people in the meetings were WFH employees, but it seems like a lot, even though these virtual meetings are made available for efficiency and ease of use. In all, there are over 60 percent more virtual meetings held in 2023 than in the pandemic year of 2020.
It’s been said that women are better remote workers than men are; and, while that can give you the impression that all men are worse than women, or all women are superstars working from home, it is empirically true. In fact, in several studies conducted over the past two years, women have outperformed men in working from home, even when there was no discernable difference in their in-house outputs. Women generally are three-to-five percent more productive in virtual meetings than men, which over time could be a major difference in overall productivity.
Studies have shown that the duration of meetings held virtually is substantially less than ones held in person. The rub is that people are having more meetings. In the past, meetings, even virtual ones, were conducted mostly to get a message to multiple people at once and save the time of having to communicate directly with individuals. There has clearly been a shift of people meeting in groups for shorter durations, but then virtually meeting individually. Overall, the number of meetings has increased, which can interrupt the flow of productivity. With more work being collaborative, however, it seems to be just the way people will be doing business going forward.
With virtual meetings seemingly the way that people are going to communicate for business— regardless of their location—getting the right meeting platform for your business’ needs has never been more important. The IT experts at First Column IT can help, give us a call today at (571) 470-5594 to learn more.
