South: Brits name perfect meeting time, says survey by LondonOffices.com

British office workers have named 10.38am as the best time to conduct a meeting – a new study by LondonOffices.com has found. 

The research carried out by serviced office searching platform LondonOffices.com sought to find out what point of the working day was best to conduct meetings. According to the 600 office workers surveyed, 10.38am came out as the average preferred meeting time.

Moreover, the majority of respondents (59%) believed meetings conducted in the morning to be more productive than those carried out in the afternoon.

4:02pm came out as the least favourite meeting time with many respondents feeling its proximity to the end of the working day meant that very little was achieved.

Only 27% of respondents thought meetings held first thing in the morning were a good idea with many believing that it delayed them for the rest of the day.

Additionally, almost half of respondents (47%) believed that having a meeting during lunchtime – a working lunch – was unproductive.

Michael Davies from LondonOffices.com commented: “The key to having a successful meeting is having it at the right time. After all there is no point having a meeting if nothing productive comes of it.

“More often than not, meetings held at the wrong time can drift into irrelevant conversation and end up being unproductive.

“Our data suggests that the best time to have a meeting is in the morning, but not first thing. Once people have got their morning emails answered and day organised, they’ll be at their most productive so it is unsurprising that 10:38 came out as the favourite time.”

One respondent said: “If there is one thing that really irritates me it is when meetings are set right at the end of the day.

"I mean 4.30pm is a completely inappropriate time for a meeting as I usually have a list as long as my arm of tasks I need to get done by the end of the day, which I can’t do if I’m stuck in a meeting.

“On top of that, nothing is agreed in those meetings because a) people don’t want to be there, b) everyone is tired and c) nothing can get actioned straight away.”

Another respondent commented: “It’s become increasingly popular in my office to start having ‘working lunches’. Not only do they not work, I see it as a cheap excuse for management to try and make me work through my lunch hour.”