Shopify Keeps Up the Fight Against Meetings

Last January, Shopify deleted all recurring meetings with more than 3 people. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/01/03/tech/shopify-meetings/index.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">According to the story on CNN Business, “Slashing meetings could help make the company more efficient while also potentially boosting morale for some workers.”</a> An exciting initiative with a bold tactic — sweeping and top-down. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/12/tech/shopify-meeting-cost-calculator/index.html" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Last month, CNN Business reported that Shopify created a meeting cost calculator because their meetings were starting to pile up again, and they needed to take “immediate action.”</a> The estimated cost of a meeting is tallied up in their Google calendar invites. The scourge of too many meetings has exploded since workplaces went remote. <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/great-expectations-making-hybrid-work-work" rel="noopener ugc nofollow" target="_blank">Microsoft’s hybrid work research found that, since February 2020 the average Teams user saw a 252% increase in their weekly meeting time and the number of weekly meetings has increased 153%.</a> Being remote means work interactions get formalized as meetings. Attendees can ramp up by adding email distribution lists to invites — no need to worry about forgetting someone when you can add everyone. Then, there comes assigning support staff to the task of “finding availability,” since under these circumstances most people appear solidly booked. With remote work, there is neither curiosity nor raised eyebrows from anyone walking past an over-capacity, glass-walled conference room, wondering what’s happening in there. (In remote work, the answer is that people are spaced out, multi-tasking, and just not sure.) <a href="https://medium.com/@aylin.koker/shopify-keeps-up-the-fight-against-meetings-43d2e4b87a16">Read More</a>