Prysm Report Spotlights the Failure of Corporate Meeting Culture.

45 percent of employees cite disengaged meeting participants as the top challenge

San Jose, Calif., Sept. 19, 2016

Corporate meetings are ineffective for three key reasons – insufficient preparation, outdated conference room technology and difficulty engaging participants – according to a new report by Prysm, Inc. The result is lost productivity and a $37 billion yearly cost to the corporate world, with employees feeling frustrated and ready to bolt to other jobs.¹

These findings are featured in Prysm’s second installment of the “Six Realities Disrupting the Workplace” report series, titled “Meetings Have Lost Their Mojo.”

This report offers tips on how to improve meeting effectiveness and sheds light on:

• Key reasons meetings are ineffective
• The cost of lost productivity and lack of employee morale
• What workers are looking for to improve meeting collaboration

 The full report can be downloaded here.

A pervasive meeting culture presents many challenges, but ongoing engagement tops the list with 45 percent of survey respondents citing lack of engagement as a top challenge to successful meetings, and 36 percent naming remote participants feeling disconnected as another major issue. The impact on employee morale is significant, with 40 percent feeling frustrated due to meeting challenges, leading to 34 percent feeling less productive – underscoring the importance of employee engagement in driving corporate productivity.²

In addition to lack of employee engagement, insufficient pre-meeting planning was cited by workers as a key reason time gets wasted in meetings, with 63 percent of meetings having no planned agenda. ³ These factors have led to 73 percent of employees admitting to doing other work during meetings. ³

Workers Crave Better Collaboration Tools in Meetings

When asked about the challenges encountered with conducting tech-enabled meetings with their teams, 35 percent of respondents to the Forrester Consulting survey stated that connectivity issues can reduce the quality of web conferences, while 28 percent said that it is difficult to keep an accurate account of everyone's input. Almost 20 percent pointed to the lack of ability to share files digitally as being a challenge in meetings.²

To ensure effective meetings, according to the Prysm report, workers cited the need for modern, digital workplace and collaboration technologies, saying there would be a positive impact on collaboration (83 percent), decision-making (80 percent) and employee engagement (79 percent).¹

“It’s time to stop having ineffective meetings where nothing gets done and employees leave fatigued and frustrated,” said Paige O’Neill, CMO, Prysm. “In 2016 employees shouldn’t have to worry that a whiteboard was erased before the meeting notes were copied, that files couldn’t be viewed or shared by participants, or that employees are disengaged due to insufficient pre-meeting preparation. Prysm is helping our customers modernize their workplace technologies with an eye to visual collaboration that is highly engaging, digital, and cloud-based. In order to retain employees, particularly millennials, this investment is becoming a business imperative.”

To help increase meeting collaboration and productivity, the following nine best practices should be followed:

1. Be prepared: Set an agenda and make sure attendees are clear on any pre-work prior to the meeting.
2. Identify the right attendees: Each attendee should have a clear role and purpose.
3. Keep it short: Keep meetings to 30 minutes or less whenever possible.
4. Stand up: Research findings have shown that standup meetings lead to greater excitement about the creative process and allow for greater collaboration on ideas.
5. Stick to the plan: Drive the meeting so that colleagues don’t go off on tangents.
6. Keep remote workers engaged: Use cloud-based conferencing tools so all team members can collaborate in real time.
7. Save and share accurate meeting notes: Leverage a digital, cloud-based format that all attendees can access so no one is waiting for information to be sent.
8. Follow up on action items: Before the meeting adjourns, make sure that each attendee understands what they’re accountable for and ensure that they have the authority to complete the tasks assigned to them. Ideally, keep a digital record.
9. Ensure future meetings can pick up where you left off: Posting and sharing data in a digital workspace keeps all players on the same page and eliminates version-control issues.

For the Forrester study cited above, Forrester conducted two online surveys of workers in large organizations (1,000 or more employees) in the US and the UK: one survey of 200 IT and facilities professionals at the director level or above, and the other survey of 800 information workers who were employed full-time and worked outside of their company’s office at least twice a month. The study began in February 2016 and was completed in March 2016.²

 Supporting content can be found here:

• E-book: “Nine Ways to Put the Mojo Back in Your Meetings”
• Infographic: “Meeting Makeover”
• Interactive Meeting Game: Play “Bad Meeting Bingo”
• Forrester Consulting Study: “Digital, Disparate, And Disengaged”
• Whitepaper: “Employee Disengagement Is a Disease: How Organizations Can Cure Today’s Workplace Pandemic”
• Presentation: “Employee Disengagement is a Disease: Ten Stats You Should Know About Today’s Workforce”

About Prysm, Inc.

Prysm is helping companies define a new way of work. One where applications, content, video conferencing and the Web can all be easily combined into a visual workspace where teams can create, edit and share. These interactive workspaces are stored in the cloud and available on any sized screen. Prysm’s Visual Workplace solutions span from executive briefing center to home office — and every size workplace in between. Today, Prysm powers many companies in the Fortune 1000 and our customers are leaders in all industries including technology, energy, finance, healthcare, media and universities. To define your company’s new way of work, visit prysm.com.

Visual Workplace is a trademark and Prysm is a registered trademark of Prysm, Inc. 

All trademarks are the property of their respective owners.   

¹ “Just Say No: How Your Meeting Habit Is Harming You,” Forbes, Aug. 2013

² “Digital, Disparate, And Disengaged: Bridging The Gap Between In-Office and Remote Workers,” a commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of Prysm, June 2016

³ “Here's Proof That Most of Your Meetings Are a Waste of Time”, INC. July, 2015

Contact

Shannon Lyman
Director of Communications
+1 859-699-6891
SLyman@prysm.com