And how many of them actually matter…
Ever feel like you’re always stuck in a meeting? Maybe you’re in a meeting right now.
Perhaps you’ve worked for the kind of place that says they “never have meetings about meetings.” That’s a good one.
In any case, new research by Deliveroo for Business has crunched the numbers, and it turns out that Irish employees will attend almost 6,500 meetings in their working lifetime.
Six thousand and five hundred.
That’s a lot of tea, biscuits and sneaking a look at your phone at perfectly-timed moments – nearly 60% of those polled confess to texting friends, family and partners during meetings.
What’s more, over half of those meetings will be completely pointless, apparently.
The study polled 1,000 full-time professionals across Ireland, finding that one in 10 admitted to falling asleep during a meeting, while 82% say that they are more likely to attend a meeting if food is available.
Speaking of food and drink, it is estimated that the Irish workforce consumes the following across a lifetime of meetings:
21,093 cups of tea and coffee.
17,258 glasses of water.
8,948 chocolate biscuits.
5, 752 sandwiches.
Also, there’s a decent chunk of well-meaning pro-active types out there, with 65% saying that they always come prepared with writing materials… that they never actually use.
A quarter of those polled say that they dread a one-on-one session with their boss about their progress, 30% can’t stand awkward catch-up lunches with clients, and 23% aren’t fond of financial reviews.
And finally, just 6% use a meeting as a platform for flirting with a colleague that they fancy.
Which is a decent return seeing as you’re there to take things seriously, and definitely not read articles like this one when you should be throwing words like ‘synergy’ and ‘strategise’ about the place…
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