Good morning!
Everyone’s collective ire towards work meetings has seemingly reached a boiling point in recent years, as in-person and virtual work gatherings alike are accused of being pointless and a waste of company money.
Infant formula startup Bobbie, a company of more than 170 whose corporate employees are fully remote, announced earlier this week that it had requested all employees to remove recurring meetings from their calendars going into the new year, dubbing the expulsion “deletion day.”
The decision followed a recent internal employee “How We Work” survey that found that just 54% of workers thought large, cross-functional meetings were productive.
“It just took the wind out of my chest to think that [nearly] half of the company was attending at least one major forum that they did not find could be as productive as it could be,” Sarah Hardy, Bobbie’s cofounder and chief people and experience officer, tells Fortune. On LinkedIn, the company also cited research published in 2022 that found that when meetings were reduced by 40%, employee productivity increased by 71%. “We wanted to figure out how to get rid of this calendar gridlock that we were feeling. Making sure that we're making the most of employees' time, respecting their time, and ensuring when they're in meetings, they’re productive,” Hardy adds.
Employees also weren’t allowed to wipe out meetings and immediately repopulate them; the company requested workers wait two days before scheduling any new meetings, resulting in two completely meeting-less days. While 48 hours may not sound like much, Hardy says it “felt like an eternity” because of how many daily meetings usually filled her schedule.
The break also helped the company audit what meetings were necessary to keep, and whether every person who could offer important input during these gatherings was involved. For example, the company consolidated five separate standing meetings for executives weekly into one meeting. The company also established an ideal timeframe for booking meetings— between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. P.T.
Over two-thirds of Bobbie’s corporate team are parents, and Hardy says the added flexibility in addition to remote work helps them balance childcare needs.
“For many of the parents on our team, it's the difference between being able to see their kids or not, or being able to drop off or pick up. It's very aligned with our mission,” says Hardy. “For our core team, it has been huge in terms of attracting and retaining talent who's mission-driven.”
Bobbie isn’t the only company to make fewer meetings a New Year’s resolution. At the beginning of 2023, Shopify removed all recurring meetings with three or more workers and barred employees from rescheduling those meetings for two weeks. It also made all Wednesdays meeting-free and limited large, 50-plus person meetings to a six-hour window on Thursdays. Time spent in meetings at Shopify was reduced by a third as of May, according to chief operating officer Kaz Nejatian, and the company expected to deliver about 25% more projects in 2023 thanks to fewer meetings.
Bobbie plans to roll out quarterly employee surveys to gauge how well the decision to remove recurring meetings pans out. However, Hardy thinks the initial enthusiasm from the rest of the company bodes well for tracking future progress.
“To see everybody say, ‘Yes, let's do it,’ it was a great teaching moment for all of us to make big moves,” says Hardy. “Sometimes it takes a dramatic step in a different direction to unlock how the company needs to evolve, and I feel like something so simple like this has had such a huge impact so quickly on the team.”
Paige McGlauflin
paige.mcglauflin@fortune.com
@paidion
CHRO Daily will pause publication until Jan. 2. Have a good holiday break, and see you in the new year!
