On Wednesday, Polly released a report highlighting employee multitasking habits during video calls, social drawbacks of the format and more. As you might expect, this has surge from two hours weekly in video meetings to 10, and 22% report allocating half or more of their work week in video meetings.
While employees are spending a comparatively large part of their workweek in meetings, they may not be giving their full undivided attention. For instance, 85% reported multitasking in video meetings and 44% said they do so “very frequently or always.” Overall, checking email (77%), other work-related tasks (74%) and perusing news and social media outlets topped the list of activities for multitaskers.
During video calls, one-quarter of respondents listed “personal connection” as “their greatest challenge” and more than half of respondents reported these sentiments about one-on-one video meetings. Meeting fatigue was another top challenge for 37% of respondents.
Why do we care?
There’s a skill to meetings. Effective ones take more than simply putting people in a room… and virtual ones are no different. Similar to the first story of the day, companies that invest in education on how to be effective will see benefits…. And providers who offer those skills will reap rewards. There is a whole business model here in training, which are natural extensions of a typical managed services provider offering, and one that adds that elusive business value.