{"id":20427,"date":"2022-11-16T10:22:32","date_gmt":"2022-11-16T15:22:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/?p=20427"},"modified":"2022-11-16T10:22:59","modified_gmt":"2022-11-16T15:22:59","slug":"zapier-cancelled-every-meeting-for-a-week-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wellable.co\/blog\/zapier-cancelled-every-meeting-for-a-week-recap\/","title":{"rendered":"Zapier Cancelled Every Meeting For A Week: A Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Although regular meetings are a fact of life for most employees, they might be more costly than they appear. A study<\/a> conducted by voice note company Otter and Steven Rogelberg, a professor of organizational science at the University of North Carolina in Charlotte, found that meetings cost companies millions of dollars a year in wasted hours. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zapier, a productivity company, decided to combat this unproductive spending with an experiment to go meeting-free for an entire week. Dubbed the Get Stuff Done (\u201cGSD\u201d) week, the experiment tested whether leaning into asynchronous communication and removing live interactions would provide employees with more time for deep work and, ultimately, get more stuff done. Ellie Huizenga, Content Specialist at Zapier, recently shared her experience<\/a> on the company\u2019s blog.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Logistics <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During the GSD week, Zapier\u2019s leadership team encouraged employees to cancel their internal meetings, including weekly team check-ins, one-on-ones, and project meetings. The team relied on other communication channels, such as Slack (chat), Asana (project management), and Coda doc (documentation). All information was gathered, consolidated, and shared asynchronously. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Employees were also encouraged to set and share personal goals publicly prior to the week to help them feel more accountable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Result<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Ellie observed that the week gave back hours of productive time to everyone, especially for the managers at Zapier. Ellie herself spent between six and 10 hours in meetings prior to the GSD week, and managers can spend upward to half of their workweek in meetings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cI manage a high-capacity team of six people, so Zoom calls tend to rule my calendar. The most surprising part of not having these weekly check-ins was that I actually didn\u2019t feel disconnected from my team at all\u2014we were all still working and communicating, just differently. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Instead of cramming tasks into my short stints between calls like usual, I was able to focus on my responsibilities that require deeper thinking, like long-term strategy, team planning, and cross-functional processes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A week without meetings gave us space for more curiosity and experimentation, encouraging us to look at the problems we are trying to solve from a different angle. For us, a meeting-less week was far from a meaningless week.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2013 Kaitlin, Zapier People Ops Manager<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Zapier\u2019s People Ops team conducted a formal survey to get a sense of how the company as a whole did with the experiment. The result showed a clear picture: GSD week was a success. <\/p>\n\n\n\n