The productivity of teams in the meeting context: Case study

Abstract

Organizational life encompasses complex processes and daily activities aimed at increasing efficiency and effectiveness. Workplace meetings are one of such activities that, despite their usefulness in helping organizations to achieve their goals, can be an overlooked practice, with high financial burdens. This exploratory study intends to build an organizational diagnosis formula aimed at assessing the cost-benefit effectiveness of workplace meetings. Based on a sample of seven meetings in a management unit of a higher education public institution, our data show that each meeting results, on average, in six decisions, with the estimated cost in personnel time for each meeting of 496.68€ and a resulting productivity ratio of 198.67€ per decision. The application of our diagnosis formula might contribute to maximize the effectiveness of meetings and organizational performance.

Keywords

• meetings
• cost-benefit analysis
• effectiveness
• productivity
• efficacy
• efficiency