How to Avoid Meeting Fatigue

Too many meetings can result in employee burnout and reduced engagement and productivity, with studies revealing meeting fatigue is the number one cause of tiredness for 64% of workers.

Both face to face and virtual meetings can leave us feeling drained if there are too many of them in succession, especially if they are poorly organised.

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Although meeting fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon, it’s something we hear more about today. Maybe this is because 46% of UK employees say the number of meetings they attend has increased since 2021, according to a survey by Virtira.

The study of almost 1,500 employees concluded virtual meetings were stressful due to being on camera all the time, with 36% of respondents saying that alone made them feel fatigued.

Around one-fifth of attendees said an email or message would have been just as effective as a meeting on many occasions.

What is meeting fatigue?

Feeling tired and fatigued is something that we experience when our diary is full of back-to-back video calls, or a stream of face-to-face meetings that seem to take up all our time, to the detriment of everything else.

Analysts have described meeting fatigue as feeling jaded by the ongoing “ordeal of the meetings slog”. Employees experience mental and physical exhaustion through attending one after another, especially those that seem unnecessary.

Meetings without an obvious purpose were cited by 47% of respondents as leaving them feeling most tired. Poor meetings have poor results, so the fact they seem pointless means they often are pointless, as they achieve very little.

How to stop yawning in meetings

When we feel tired or bored, it’s a natural bodily response to yawn. If we try to stifle it, the meeting organiser is still likely to notice. Even the most dedicated employee might be giving off a negative impression as a result.

According to a poll of managers, some are so frustrated at seeing an attendee yawning continually that they take them to one side afterwards and have a quiet word with them. This is often along the lines of, “You appear too tired to contribute when you yawn in meetings. Could you please try to be more attentive?” However, secretly, they feel even stronger about yawning, believing the individual is “bored, rude and an unsuitable candidate for promotion”.

Medical research shows that yawning really is contagious, so all it takes is for one person to yawn in a meeting and you could soon find others follow suit. The average person yawns nine times in a day, but this can increase to 20 times if feeling fatigued. If four of the yawns happen during one 30-minute meeting, it’s not a good look.

A scientific study published by the National Library of Medicine said more frequent yawning occurred when the subjects were “viewing uninteresting and repetitive stimuli” and during activities where there was “minimal interaction”.

Transfer this theory to a meeting scenario and this may provide an insight into why people are yawning.

How to prepare an agenda for a meeting

Meeting preparation is important to make sure the event provides the best experience for your team. Create an agenda that contains specific objectives and goals and share it with attendees in advance. This will ensure everyone can prepare properly and will also keep the meeting on track, so it doesn’t continue for too long. People can use the agenda to plan accordingly, because it should let them know exactly what to expect.

Attaching the agenda with the invitation will enable colleagues to look and determine whether to accept or decline. Unless the meeting is compulsory and organised by the management for a very important reason, learn when to say “no”. Even if you’ve been invited, reading the agenda will let you know whether your presence is vital, or whether you’re just making up the numbers.

As a meeting organiser, invite only the essential people who need to be there. If you’re unsure whether certain colleagues need to attend or not, ask them! Alternatively, you can include the word “optional” on the invitation so people can make up their own mind. As long as they RSVP so you know who’s going to be there, this system will avoid wasting anyone’s time.

How to reduce meeting fatigue

Studies show 37% of employees spend between four and 12 hours a week in meetings, equating to between 10% and 30% of their total working hours.

Keep the meeting on schedule and be conscious of when it’s veering off-topic, swiftly steering it in the right direction again. Around 50% of people say their biggest source of frustration in meetings is wasting time. Being delayed because another attendee is holding up progress for what appears to be an irrelevant reason can leave people feeling ready to explode.

After every meeting, collect feedback to find out how attendees felt it went. This will give you an insight into the company’s meeting culture, identifying areas where improvements can be made and how you can keep delegates engaged and motivated.

Working out how to not feel fatigued is a vital part of workplace life. For example, e-commerce company Shopify looked into its meetings culture and introduced some changes to prevent fatigue. These included encouraging managers to call only the meetings that were actually necessary, curtailing the practice of recurring meetings just for the sake of it and making one day per week meeting-free. As a result, they were able to complete 25% more projects.

When organising meeting room hire, consider carefully how many people are coming and how much space you’ll need. Nothing brings on meeting fatigue faster than too many people packed into a warm room.

If you plan to book a meeting room in London, take advantage of the local attractions and invite attendees for a social drink afterwards to unwind. Some gain energy by being around other people and socialising, so it could be a good way to round off the event and help with team bonding.

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