Why Americans Find Virtual And In-Person Meetings So Stressful

A new survey from Deputy showed that workers would rather attend a doctor’s appointment, sit in traffic, and perform jury duty than attend a work meeting.

A new survey from meeting scheduling software firm Deputy shows what employees would rather do than attend virtual or in-person meetings.

In fact, the survey of 3,280 respondents showed that 58% of workers would rather attend a doctor’s appointment, 25% would rather sit in traffic, and 17% would rather perform jury duty.

Last year, the average time for meetings was 4.48 hours across the country, but this varied across states.

The top states for meeting times included:

Georgia at 8.39 average hours per week
Massachusetts at 7.67 hours per week
Kentucky at 6.14 hours per week
Maine at 6 hours per week

The military industry saw the least amount of time per meeting, with 100% of respondents stated their meetings were 15 minutes or less.

Additionally, 80% of food service workers stated that they spend no more than 30 minutes per meeting.

According to the survey, the top work meeting stressors were preparing reports, delivering bad news, participating in discussion, scheduling, and being punctual. 

However, meeting bloat was also a significant contributor to workplace stress. In fact, a Microsoft survey showed a 150% growth in time spent on its Meetings application from September 2019 to September 2020.

“Unfortunately, the stress of meetings is real. For many, the dread related to attending work meetings wasn’t just whether or not the meeting was interesting, or how much work was being interrupted,” Deputy stated. “It was actually heavily due to timing, performance anxiety, and social anxiety.”

As a result, many workers have experienced the phenomenon often referred to as “Zoom fatigue” in which professionals spend excessive time attending meetings, which takes away from their work productivity and increases the likelihood of burnout.