LONDON, June 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- 'Dragging on meetings longer than they need to be' (80%), 'interrupting' (79%) and 'ignoring others' (77%) have been identified by those surveyed as the three most annoying** online meeting behaviours in an exclusive new survey of 1,016 UK office workers*.
Research commissioned by Meeting Canary - a SaaS cloud-hosted product that delivers insights and efficiency for online meetings, using artificial intelligence - and carried out by Censuswide, discovered a shocking one third of office workers surveyed said*** they have considered leaving or have resigned from a job due to unproductive meetings in the past, rising to almost one in two Gen Zs.
The report uncovered generational differences in which behaviours are most likely to create an unproductive meeting environment. While Gen Zs surveyed ranked 'ignoring others' (75%), 'interrupting' (73%), and 'discounting the opinions of others based on their gender, sex or race etc' (70%) as the top three most annoying** behaviours, baby boomers surveyed cited 'People who drag meetings on longer than they need to be' (84%), 'interrupting' (79%) and 'arriving late' (79%).
How 'late' is 'late'?
Lateness was a particular issue that divided the generations. When asked the question: "As a general rule, by how many minutes, if any, do you think it's acceptable to arrive at a work meeting after the agreed time before it is considered late?" 70% of baby boomers surveyed said 'no time - if you arrive after the agreed time at all then you are late'. Only 22% of Gen Zs surveyed said the same.
In fact, almost one in two Gen Zs surveyed (47%) said participants could arrive up to 5-10 minutes after the agreed time before they would consider them late.
Baby boomers were also more likely than Gen Zs to find 'people who have their camera off' annoying** (54% vs 31%), 'people talking when they're on mute' (63% vs 50%) and 'using jargon' (70% vs 44%).
Meetings are broken - and everybody knows it
The report uncovered widespread dissatisfaction with meetings among adults of all ages, with 58% surveyed saying*** that 'a lot of meetings lack focus or energy'. Almost six in 10 (57%) also believe*** that 'a lot of the meetings they are in leave quieter members of staff out'.
In collaboration with leading AI researcher Professor Chris Reed from the University of Dundee and Professor Michael Dickmann, HR expert at Cranfield School of Management, Meeting Canary has developed a formula for calculating meeting effectiveness.
Dubbed the FIRE metric (standing for Focus, Inclusion, Respect and Energy), FIRE enables Meeting Canary to offer helpful prompts during meetings with a fun canary avatar and provide insights in a sidebar to measure meeting productivity.
Available now as an app on Microsoft Teams, Meeting Canary provides insights into how much a meeting costs, which participants spoke the most and to whom, and how inclusive the meeting was.
"With just under three in five UK office workers who take part in online hybrid meetings at least once per week surveyed (59%) telling*** us they feel like their company wastes a lot of time and money on meetings, it's clear that the way the vast majority of companies hold meetings is broken," said Laura van Beers, CEO & Founder of Meeting Canary.
"While these results are damning for virtual meeting culture, we believe this report also shows that Meeting Canary holds the solution. 72% said they would find real-time nudging when unhelpful behaviour occurs to be useful****, while 76% said the same for 'Understanding when a meeting drops in energy or focus in real time'.
"These are both features offered by Meeting Canary, so we welcome any company that is passionate about making their meetings fit for purpose to get in touch."
Meeting Canary is available now from Microsoft AppSource and will shortly be available on other virtual meeting platforms.
About Meeting Canary
Meeting Canary is a SaaS cloud hosted product to deliver insights and efficiency for online meetings. Using state of the art Artificial Intelligence (AI) the Meeting Canary bot is trained to alert meeting participants to behaviours and events which, if improved, would enhance meeting outcomes and deliver shorter, more productive online meetings.
Numerous features include analysing meeting behaviours such as interruptions, cross talking, idea origination, and rising or falling energy levels.
Post meeting, Meeting Canary offers data insights into what happened during that meeting, who spoke when, what was said and visualise the sentiment of the meeting.
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