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- 🧘♀️ focus days & the meeting-free movement
🧘♀️ focus days & the meeting-free movement
because too many meetings could be killing productivity
In partnership with
Happy Thursday HR friends👋
Hopefully the formatting issues are all sorted now, but please just let us know if you see anything funky!
🧠Today’s HR brain boosting topic is focus days. Pipe dream, or necessary new process?
In Today’s Edition
📅 Why Meeting-Free Days Are Having a Moment
🛋️ The Break Room: Real Talk About Meeting Fatigue & What HR Can Actually Do About It
📚 Human Readsources: Teams users can clone voices for multilingual meetings, Checkr launches program hiring workers with records, USPTO restricts AI use, allows testing environment.
Do you feel like this sprinting from meeting to meeting..?
Exhausting isn't it? We've all sat through those meetings that could've been emails, longingly watching our actual work pile up.
We're diving into how these meeting-free days actually work (and why your team might need one ASAP). 🗓️
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💡 Why Meeting-Free Days Are Having a Moment
If you've noticed your employees looking like zombies after their eighth Zoom call of the day, you're not alone. Meeting fatigue is real, and it's crushing productivity across organizations.
The average professional now spends a whopping 62 meetings per month, with most feeling that 71% of these meetings are unproductive. No wonder everyone's burning out!
Here's where meeting-free days come in - and they're more than just a trendy workplace perk. Companies like Citi and Facebook are blocking out entire days for focused work, and they're seeing major results.
The key is starting small: designate one day (usually Wednesday or Thursday) where meetings are banned unless absolutely crucial. This gives your people dedicated time for deep work while maintaining team connectivity the rest of the week.
For HR pros, this is a golden opportunity to address both productivity and wellbeing concerns in one shot. Yes, you'll face some resistance (there's always that one manager who loves their daily stand-ups), but the payoff in terms of employee satisfaction and actual work output is worth it.
Just remember to keep some flexibility for truly urgent matters - we're trying to boost productivity, not create new headaches! 😉
🔗 Relevant links
👀 TLDR
Meeting overload is crushing productivity, with pros spending 62 meetings/month (mostly unproductive). Major companies are fighting back with meeting-free days, giving employees dedicated focus time while boosting wellbeing. Start small with one no-meeting day per week - your over-Zoomed teams will thank you! 🙌
⚡ Takeaway and Try
- 📊 Poll your team on their most draining meeting days - this data will help you pick the perfect day to test a no-meeting policy (hint: mid-week usually wins)
- 🗓 ️ Audit your recurring meetings this week - if you can't immediately explain why each one exists, it probably shouldn't
- 📝 Draft a simple "urgent matters protocol" for your no-meeting day - what actually counts as meeting-worthy, and how should people handle those exceptions?
- 🎯 Start small: block one afternoon next week as a meeting-free pilot, and ask your team to track what they accomplished in that time
- 💬 Ask your team this question: "If you had 4 uninterrupted hours, what's that one project you'd finally finish?" Their answers might surprise you
☕ The Break Room: What's Your Take?
🤔 How do you feel about implementing meeting-free days at your organization? |
📚 Human Readsources
🏢 Microsoft Teams to Clone Voices for Live Translation (TechCrunch) - Microsoft Teams to offer real-time voice-cloning translation in nine languages.
⚖️ Checkr Launches Program to Hire Workers with Records (HR Dive) - Checkr launches apprenticeship program for workers with criminal records.
📊 USPTO Lifts Ban on Select AI Tools for Staff (HR Grapevine) - USPTO restricts generative AI use, allows testing in controlled environment.
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