Shopify tells workers how much their meetings cost

Shopify is showing workers just how much meetings cost in its latest effort to curb unnecessary gatherings in the workplace.

The Canadian multinational e-commerce firm has debuted an internal meeting cost calculator, built as a Google GOOG, +4.36% Chrome extension, reported MarketWatch.

The calculator shows Shopify workers the estimated cost of their meeting to the company, using factors like the meeting’s length, the number of attendees and compensation data based on job position.

“The average size of a meeting at Shopify includes three people, and the average length of a meeting is about 30 minutes,” Shopify told MarketWatch. “A typical meeting of this size and length would cost between $700-$1600.”

That cost would go up if the number of attendees increased, or the meeting included higher-level executives, according to the report.

Big companies are losing over $100 million thanks to unnecessary meetings, according to a previous report.

With the new tool, Shopify is hoping workers will think twice before setting up meetings – unless it’s absolutely necessary, according to the MarketWatch report.

“People ask questions: ‘What is this meeting for? Why are this many people in it?’ And those questions will put an immense amount of pressure on organizers to organize fewer meetings — and leave the rest of us alone,” said Shopify chief operating officer Kaz Netajian in a previous CBS report.

“No one at Shopify would expense a $500 dinner,” said chief operating officer Kaz Netajian, according to MarketWatch. “But lots and lots of people spend way more than that in meetings without ever making a decision. The goal of this thing is to show you that time is money. If you have to spend it, you think about it.”

Unnecessary meetings unpopular

Introducing the new tool is the latest Shopify move to curb unnecessary meetings.

Previously, the company began axing all recurring meetings, and eliminated Wednesday meetings to give workers a meetings-free day each week, at the start of 2023, according to the MarketWatch report.

Days without meetings simply makes sense, one CEO previously told Canadian HR Reporter. And long and unnecessary meetings are unpopular with managers, according to a previous report.

Many workers also find them – especially those that happen virtually – to be a waste of time: Seventy-six per cent of workers said they are more distracted during video meetings than in-person meetings, and almost three-quarters (72 per cent) of workers turned off their video during meetings to do other things such as look at their phones (65 per cent), talk to someone else (47 per cent) or check in with social media (44 per cent), according to a previous report.

How to reduce unnecessary meetings

Here’s how to reduce unnecessary meetings, as Caroline Castrillon, career and leadership coach, shared in a Forbes article:

• Convert meetings to an asynchronous format.
• Remove recurring meetings without an agenda.
• Get comfortable declining unnecessary meetings.
• Delegate unnecessary meetings to those who may benefit from it.
• Implement meeting-free times.