Eight out of 10 workers in the UK believe that most of their work meetings are unnecessary or unproductive, costing businesses thousands of pounds in unnecessary spend each year and wasting valuable time, according to research from Robert Walters.

The survey revealed that 80% employees agreed they waste time by attending at least half of their meetings because they are unstructured and result in no defined actions – questioning why the meetings are called in the first place.

Susan Major, director of HR recruitment at Robert Walters, says: “Meetings are an essential part of business – your average executive level employee will attend two to three meetings a day. However, there is a question whether some of these meetings are worth it. If they are wasting valuable working hours and nothing comes out of it – then it’s pointless for the employee and their company. Meetings should be productive – let’s not have meetings for the sake of it,” she says.

Other findings show that less than one in 10 people around the world truly believe in the effectiveness of meetings. The Japanese are the strongest supporters of meetings, closely followed by the Irish, whilst in South Africa meetings tend to be least productive.