Are Companies More Productive in a Pandemic?

by MeetingScience | Jun 23, 2020 | Why MeetingScience?

David Gelles writes for the Corner Office column for The New York Times. In this article, he interviews leaders from Chegg, Cisco, EventBrite, Microsoft, Pierpont Communications, Splunk, and Affirm to investigate the rise or fall of pandemic productivity and how working from home affects the heart, soul, and mind.

Our initial pandemic analysis reveals that meetings have increased by 27% over pre-pandemic levels, but that the same bad habits that existed prior to the pandemic have found their way into pandemic meeting practices. Only 5% of meetings of two or more people have an agenda. Companies who insisted on ‘no meeting {day that ends in Y}’ find themselves with employees who have other days stacked with back-to-back meetings. Lateness continues to abound, in no small part due to the easy distractions (family, home life) found at home.

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