Corporate Employees spend 40% of their time in Meetings. Meetings account for 0% productivity.

Corporate Employees spend 40% of their time in Meetings. Meetings account for 0% Productivity.It is a thought provoking statistic and of course, is slightly provocative but there are a number of points to be considered:

• There is arguably too much time today spent with internal process that increases the workload on an already tired and stressed business model. If the above stat is true – and it wouldn’t surprise many – then of course this means that only 60% of the time left can be used for activity.

We already know that the average employee receives 150 emails per day and this takes 3 hours a day to manage – so that leaves around 1 hour to engage clients/the external market.Don’t we have a productivity issue in the UK?We believe in People before Strategy.

• Procurement has been too dominant and there is a genuine desire for a new balance to be found. The Carillion story will live long and be a warning for many – but in truth procurement has dominated for a long period of time and this is been too focused on cost and not enough on great services and products.
• This is not just about employees and productivity but also about relieving the strain on leaders too. They are carrying a great weight and have little time.

There was research that came out that suggested that few CEOs have faith in their HRDs and few HRDs have great confidence in their CEOs.This is not a great sign of a team united to achieve great results and management with human capita.Why?From the CEOs perspective

• Often HR professionals are only experienced in HR and not in broader business and therefore do not always understand all the dynamics which cause stress
• HR talks about strategy rather than real actions.
• HR is often about reducing risk rather than building business/human capital

From HRD’s perspectiveThe CEO is too controlling and too focused only on financial results and not on culture.

• Investment in people is seen as a luxury not a necessity
• CEOs do not see the link between strong engagement and bottom line results
• CEOs more and more like to control and not empower. It is the CEOs that show in their behaviours a lack of trust in others

There is a fair reason why younger people are not being appointed to senior positions at a young age as happened in the past and it has little to do with HR but more to do with leaderships lack of desire to empower youthAll this can be changed and improved if we develop a new focus – a focus that places people before strategy.To find out more please contact Ben.Butler@epmagazine.co.ukWe'd love to stay in touch.Thank you for being part of the EP community. The law is changing, so everyone must opt-in to continue to receive emails from EP. We are passionate about the industry and don’t want you to miss out on news, insights, inspiring stories and opinion plus events.Click the below button to stay in touch and continue to receive our EP Newsletters. If you do not opt-in by May 25th, you will be automatically opted-out of all future EP Newsletters.

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