Neuroscience
Employees are always in meetings these days and the popular consensus is that, at best, they’re a chore, and at worst, they’re a serious disruption to productivity. But when Steven Rogelberg and colleagues surveyed 980 employees in America and the UK, they found no association between employees’ time spent in meetings and how positive or negative they felt about their work, or how well they felt in general.
“It may be socially unacceptable to publicly claim that meetings are desirable. Instead, a social norm to complain about meetings may exist – not doing so could reflect poorly on the employee”, the researchers said.
In the first study, hundreds of employees completed an online survey that asked about the number of meetings (and time spent in meetings) they typically had in a week. In the second study, participants answered questions about meetings they’d had that same day.
Overall participants who endured more meetings were just as positive about their jobs as people who had few meetings. However, employees who reported being particularly goal driven did tend to be negatively affected by meetings. Moreover, in the first study, participants whose responsibilities didn’t require working with other people were also negatively affected by meetings. Finally, the perceived quality of meetings had an impact on employees’ attitudes in the second study but not the first, probably because they were recalling specific experiences from that same day rather than responding more generally.
“Trade literature argues that perceptions of meeting effectiveness would appear to be promoted to the extent that people come prepared to meetings, an agenda is used, meetings are punctual, purposes are clear, and there is widespread attendee participation. We recommend that organisations include such factors in good-practice guidelines for the conduct of their meetings”, the researchers said.
___________________________________
Rogelberg, S.G., Leach, D.J., Warr, P.B. & Burnfield, J.L. (2006). "Not another meeting!" Are meeting time demands related to employee well-being? Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 83-96.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Neuroscience
Admit it, you love meetings really...
Employees are always in meetings these days and the popular consensus is that, at best, they’re a chore, and at worst, they’re a serious disruption to productivity. But when Steven Rogelberg and colleagues surveyed 980 employees in America and the UK, they found no association between employees’ time spent in meetings and how positive or negative they felt about their work, or how well they felt in general.“It may be socially unacceptable to publicly claim that meetings are desirable. Instead, a social norm to complain about meetings may exist – not doing so could reflect poorly on the employee”, the researchers said.
In the first study, hundreds of employees completed an online survey that asked about the number of meetings (and time spent in meetings) they typically had in a week. In the second study, participants answered questions about meetings they’d had that same day.
Overall participants who endured more meetings were just as positive about their jobs as people who had few meetings. However, employees who reported being particularly goal driven did tend to be negatively affected by meetings. Moreover, in the first study, participants whose responsibilities didn’t require working with other people were also negatively affected by meetings. Finally, the perceived quality of meetings had an impact on employees’ attitudes in the second study but not the first, probably because they were recalling specific experiences from that same day rather than responding more generally.
“Trade literature argues that perceptions of meeting effectiveness would appear to be promoted to the extent that people come prepared to meetings, an agenda is used, meetings are punctual, purposes are clear, and there is widespread attendee participation. We recommend that organisations include such factors in good-practice guidelines for the conduct of their meetings”, the researchers said.
___________________________________
Rogelberg, S.G., Leach, D.J., Warr, P.B. & Burnfield, J.L. (2006). "Not another meeting!" Are meeting time demands related to employee well-being? Journal of Applied Psychology, 91, 83-96.
Post written by Christian Jarrett (@psych_writer) for the BPS Research Digest.
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Most textbooks fail to discuss the role of humour in business negotiations but from her analysis of two real-life meetings concerning a multi-million pound transaction, Taina Vuorela at the Helsinki School of Economics reports that humour can be an important...
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Negative events at work, like being criticised, affect our mood far more than positive events, such as receiving praise. That’s according to Andrew Miner from the University of Minnesota and his colleagues. They gave 41 employees a palmtop computer...
- Interested In Mental Health Advocacy? Join Active Minds!
Active Minds at Maryland Weekly Meetings WHEN: Thursdays at 7 PM WHERE: ASY3217Did you know 1 in 4 Americans age 18 to 22 are affected by a mental illness? Did you know suicide is the 2nd leading cause of death in college students, but the...
- Research Assistants For Extremism Lab
Research assistant opportunities (volunteer or for-credit) are available for Fall 2011 in two labs that study interrelated topics, including motivational processes that drive extremist attitudes and behavior, heuristics involved in the use of costly means...
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The Comprehensive Assessment and Intervention Program (CAIP), directed by Dr. Andres De Los Reyes, is conducting community based study on parent/child relationships, conflict, parental monitoring and delinquent behavior in families with adolescent and...