A Microsoft study analyzed multitasking behavior during online meetings. Our conclusion: Formalization and automation promote focus and reduce inefficient communication processes.
An Editorial of the FOM Magazine
Hand on heart: do you always listen attentively in meetings? Most of them don't.
According to a University of Florida study, employees spend most of their mental energy staring at themselves during online meetings.
In addition, many meeting participants carry out other activities during the meeting that are irrelevant to the meeting. The presence of iPhones and iPads in meetings also increases the tendency to multitask.
Productivity, however, falls by the wayside.
What is multitasking?
Multitasking - defined as performing several activities at the same time - has a negative impact on productivity. This has been shown, for example, in studies conducted in lecture halls where students answered emails or surfed the Internet on their laptops while lecturing.
In our daily lives, we are all multitaskers, some more, some less. However, online meetings multiply the problem, as multitasking in a group not only negatively affects the productivity of one person, but that of all meeting participants.
Researchers at Stanford University and University College London, together with Microsoft and Amazon, have therefore examined multitasking behavior during video conferences in more detail (PDF). To this end, they collected meeting data from 715 Microsoft employees in the USA from February to May 2020.
Multitasking during meetings
The study found that email multitasking occurred in 30 percent of meetings. In 23 percent of meetings, participants were engaged in documents during the meeting that had no relevance to the meeting.
Here are some of the study's findings:
- A muted microphone or video off increases the likelihood of multitasking.
- More multitasking takes place in meetings with a large number of participants. For this purpose, meeting sizes of 3 participants, 4-5 participants, 6-10 participants and over 10 participants were analyzed. The larger the group of participants, the more multitasking took place.
- The longer the meeting, the more multitasking took place. Thus, significantly more multitasking took place in a 40-80 minute meeting than in a 20-40 minute meeting.
- More multitasking takes place in regularly recurring meetings than in ad hoc meetings.
- More multitasking takes place Monday through Thursday than in Friday meetings.
- Morning meetings result in more multitasking than afternoon meetings. This is probably due to the work rhythm of the employees, argue the authors of the study.
Figure: Distribution of email, document and meeting load throughout the day.
Best practices as a solution approach for multitasking
The study's creators argue that meeting structure and management could significantly reduce multitasking among meeting participants. For example, many challenges could be solved through the following best practices:
- No meetings in the morning
- Avoid unnecessary meetings
- Reduce meeting times
- Interrupt longer meetings with breaks
- Require active participation and speech
One should add: no iPads and iPhones in meetings!
While such rules of conduct can certainly promote productivity, they are usually lost in practice. Instead, companies should integrate these best practices directly into the meeting design as hard rules using software solutions.
Anti-multitasking rules through software code
FOM software provides computer-based meeting tools, some of which are based on the best practices mentioned above.
For example, the software contains interactive agenda templates for various meeting formats such as all-hands meetings or budget meetings. This gives the meetings a predefined structure and all participants can also prepare accordingly.
The software can also limit the number of participants and meeting length to a set maximum. If you then need to deviate from these rules for individual meetings, this can be set manually.
Other standardizations and automations such as polling tools, automated protocols or question tools can also help formalize meetings and thus reduce multitasking.
FOM software also allows you to conduct your own study in your company. It includes analysis tools that allow you to record, for example, meeting duration, participant strength, punctuality, meeting days and tools used.
