Atlassian Corporation Releases 'Workplace Woes: Meetings Edition' Report

Atlassian Corporation, a leading provider of team collaboration and productivity software including Jira Software, Confluence and Trello, has launched its new research report, ‘Workplace Woes: Meetings Edition’, that highlights findings on the effectiveness of meetings in the modern workplace and the greatest blockers to productivity. Interestingly, the survey reveals 84% of Indian knowledge workers agree they would be more productive if they could spend less time in meetings.

Atlassian, in partnership with Wakefield Research, surveyed 5,000 knowledge workers in India, U.S., Australia, Germany and France (1,000 per market). The research reveals that meetings are ineffective, with workers agreeing that meetings fail to accomplish their goals 60% of the time. Workers cite time spent in meetings as the #1 barrier preventing them from completing their day-to-day tasks, which is ranked ahead of lack of motivation, unclear goals, unclear responsibilities, and unsure of who to work with.

Dom Price, Work Futurist, Atlassian said, “At Atlassian, we have been experimenting with better ways of working for over 20 years. We know that teams are more distributed but those not equipped with the right products and practices will quickly see themselves defaulting to meetings when they are likely not the most effective tool for the job. Teams that revert to old ways of working and schedule meetings without intentionality are going to see themselves fall behind effective teams who experiment and take advantage of dynamic async tools like Loom and Confluence.”

Atlassian has shared what they have done internally in the company and externally with their customers to address the problem. The research is divided into themes that include:

1. PRODUCTIVITY: Meetings are overused, leaving workers overloaded

Key India specific findings -

• As per the survey, 90% of respondents say it’s hard to get their work done on top of attending all their meetings.
• 74% have to work overtime at least a few days a week due to meeting overload, compared to 51% globally.
• 80% agree they feel drained on days when they have a lot of meetings.

Solution - The company’s Team Anywhere Lab conducted an experiment to test what would happen if they enabled Atlassians to design their workdays around their top priorities instead of around attending meetings and reacting to notifications. The experiment had great results - 67% of individual contributors and 71% of managers who implemented these changes felt that they made more progress on top priorities than they would have in a typical week.

2. EFFECTIVENESS: Meetings don’t achieve the desired outcomes

Key India specific findings -

• 70% of people say they feel lonely at work, even when they attend lots of meetings, compared to 55% globally.
• 88% of workers who were surveyed say they’re frequently in meetings that end in a decision to schedule a follow-up meeting.

Solution -

a. Loom - With Loom, a video messaging platform that provides AI-based transcript functions, one gets the benefits of a meeting and the convenience of an email or Slack.

b. Confluence - Whether it’s a quarterly plan, project pitch, or technical design, ideas can be shared first on Confluence, a content collaboration and management workspace, built for teams. Then, feedback can be provided based on the comments received.

3. CULTURE: Don’t cancel all your meetings (just make them better)

Key India specific findings -

• 66% of workers say they often attend meetings where no goal has been communicated.
• 91% think agendas lead to productive meetings.
• 82% of workers say most of their meetings could be done in half the time.

Solution -

• Include a goal on your meeting invite.
• Craft a meeting agenda beforehand.
• Swap your 30-minute meetings for 15 minutes.
• Use our Meeting Notes template so people can contribute their ideas ahead of time.