Time is money, and Shopify Inc wants its workers to understand that maxim applies to pointless meetings, too.
The Canadian e-commerce company has rolled out a calculator embedded in employees\u2019 calendar app that estimates the cost of any meeting with three or more people. The tool uses average compensation data across roles and disciplines, along with meeting length and attendee count, to put a price tag on the event. A typical 30 minute endeavor with three employees can run from $700 up to $1,600. Adding an executive \u2014 like Chief Operating Officer Kaz Nejatian, who built the program during a company-wide hack day \u2014 can shoot the cost above $2000.
The new tool is part of the company\u2019s yearlong drive to reduce unnecessary gatherings. Earlier this year, Shopify eliminated all recurring meetings with more than two people and started discouraging meetings on Wednesdays.
The goal of these initiatives, said Nejatian, is to \u201cchange the default answer from yes to no.\u201d
The company is on pace to cut out 322,000 hours and 474,000 discrete events in 2023, according to Nejatian.
\u201cNo one at Shopify would expense a $500 dinner,\u201d Nejatian said in an interview. \u201cBut lots and lots of people spend way more than that in meetings without ever making a decision. The goal of this thing is to show you that time is money. If you have to spend it, you think about it.\u201d
Executives and their employees both say they spend hours each week in meetings that could disappear without consequence. Time wasted on activities like meetings were among the top five causes of inefficiency within an organization, a survey of business leaders and knowledge workers from project-management app Wrike found.
In total, noncritical meetings waste about $100 million a year at big organizations, according to research from Steven Rogelberg, a professor at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte who has studied meetings for two decades.
Companies have battled the scourge of meetings for decades. When Alan Mulally took over at Ford Motor Co. in 2006, he slashed unnecessary or unduly long meetings to speed decision making. A decade ago, Bain & Co. found that a single weekly meeting of midlevel managers cost one organization $15 million a year, and senior executives devoted more than two days every week to meetings.
\u201cMeetings are like weeds \u2014 they sprout back up, everywhere, unless you\u2019re diligent,\u201d said Brian Elliott, an executive adviser on workplace issues.
On its own, the Shopify calculator won\u2019t likely change behaviors, Rogelberg said. \u201cIt is a very superficial intervention.\u201d
He suggested the company couple it with training on best practices, feedback for middle managers and buy-in from senior leadership \u2014 all things that Shopify is already doing as part of its broader calendar campaign.
Another concern, said Steph Little, a senior consultant at workplace advisory firm Bright + Early, is that putting a dollar figure on meetings might discourage junior or marginalized employees from raising an important issue up the chain, thinking it\u2019s not worth it.
\u201cWe have a ton of unnecessary meetings, sure, but we also have people who are left out of decisions,\u201d Little said. \u201cWhen people are working remotely especially, they want the connection and information.\u201d
At Shopify, the average time spent in meetings per worker declined 14% over the first five months of 2023 compared with the same period last year. That\u2019s helped contribute to a projected 18% increase in finished projects this year, Nejatian said.
\u201cMost of the modern work environment is broken,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s not just any one change that matters.\u201d<\/div>\n