
According to recent study by researchers at Harvard Business School that analysed anonymous data, acquired from an information-technology services provider, covering more than 3m people in 16 cities in America, Europe and the Middle East:
More but Shorter Meetings
- Employees have been attending more meetings (increased by 13%) but shorter meetings (by about 20% or 12 mins) by video conference, rather than in person— with Europeans keener to shorten the meetings than Americans.
- The number of people in the average meeting has risen too, by 13.5%, perhaps because video conferences, unlike office-bound ones, are not constrained by space.
Longer Working Hours
- Working hours have expanded to soak up the extra minutes from the lack of work commute and more. On average, people have clocked up an extra 48.5 minutes a day—more than the average commuting time in America or Europe.
- This is largely because of a rise of 8% in the number of emails sent after normal business hours. Internal emailing during normal hours has risen too, along with the average number of recipients, presumably as a substitute for talking face to face
Reference: The Economist, “How has the pandemic changed working lives?” August 20th, 2020 https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/08/20/how-has-the-pandemic-changed-working-lives