Knowledge workers spend about one working day every week, or 23% of their timeIn a meeting. The weight of the working day often prevents employees from being uninterrupted to concentrate, so that they extend their hours far beyond the traditional 9-to-5.
It is tempting for companies to embrace the attraction of ‘no meetings’, in the hope that the extra time will lead to more focused work. But does elimination of meetings really work?
Grace Williams, VP of customer relationships of the PR Agency Panblast, convinced her leadership team Cancel all meetings for a week. With more than 20 meetings that filled more than half of her schedule, Grace saw a “no meeting week” as an opportunity to do meaningful work while illuminating some zoom fatigue.
The result? While some employees missed social interactions and struggled with understanding the workload, 92% of employees said that they would like to repeat the experiment again that year.
So what is the right step for companies? “Do they have to devote a day to deep work every week, or test a full week without meetings?
Here representatives of companies of all sizes share how they reconsider the meeting culture.
Consider a day deep work
I brought a policy “no-meeting Friday” when I came to Tormach two years ago-the rest of the company took over shortly thereafter. The result? Higher productivity, no communication gaps and a noticeable shift in moral. People use on Friday to catch up with e -mails, finish admin tasks and tie loose ends, so that the mental mess is deleted before the weekend. It also creates a natural stimulus to work together on Thursday, so deadlines are usually hit earlier.
The idea came from my experience at larger companies, where Friday meetings were often canceled at the last minute by leadership, which threw your day and your mentality away. It felt inefficient and frustrating, so I decided to turn that script and simply eliminate the expectations of meetings completely.
We remain connected via Microsoft teams and Friday has become an organic day when people share weekly victories in our channels – which means that communication flows while they still honor deep working time.
Heather CurtisDirector of Sales and Marketing, Torm
Give employees aids to step out of meetings
No meeting policy and no meeting weeks should be a thing of the past thanks to AI.
Instead of an all-or-nothing approach that limits how people want to work, they give the tools to step out of meetings they can miss instead, while they still ensure that they get the information they need. It is all infinitely more possible today.
When teams implement an AI meeting Copilot, individuals naturally also attend 20% fewer meetings, while they still have access to the content via shared meeting reports and connected Enterprise search. Nobody even needs to revise more minutes for more minutes; You can easily request your knowledge base for the information you need and you will go through your day faster.
David ShimCo -founder and CEO, Read AI
Anchor the week with written, public obligations
Growth requires speed and meetings delayed us. So we have implemented a complete policy for the non-enlarged for five consecutive working days. No regular standups, check-ins or even “fast” calls. We have structured it as a sprint, in which each participant has committed an important project for the week and sharing it in a weak thread on Monday morning.
The output in that week doubled compared to a typical week, as measured by the number of launched campaigns and functions delivered. It felt electric. By Friday, however, we realized that relationships had suffered somewhat; Informal cooperation and creative riffs were almost impossible to exist without real -time chats.
To guarantee long -term success, the week anchor the week with written, public obligations. At Beehiiv we need a Monday kick and a Friday summary. Without that a lack of meetings makes people just invisible, and invisibility kills faster than meetings ever.
Edward WhiteHead of growth, beige
Buy a buy-in from top to bottom
Shift has implemented more than a year deep work for the entire company on Wednesday. The key to a successful policy without a meeting is to first reach a real buy-in from top to bottom. It is often at leadership level where schedules are busy and meeting invitations are planned to just find the time when nobody has booked meetings.
Individual team members also look at the leadership of the company to assess how dedicated they should be to a new business policy or changes in their workflow. The long-term success of the no-meeting policy of a company depends on those who set the right tone at the top and set a good example.
Sabrina BanadaVP of marketing, Shift
Be intentional about meetings
Thinking meeting habits are not about cutting things out completely, but it’s about being intentional. I am relentless about attending only meetings with a clear agenda and goal. If something can be shared as ongoing communication, instead of a separate meeting, that should be. If I can enable someone to move forward without me, even better.
My advice? The good example. Defend your agenda, prioritize deep work and normalize the idea that being not in every meeting can actually be a sign of a strong, empowerment and trusted team, not a disconnected.
Jean-Christophe Taunay Bucalo (JC), President and COO at Travel
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