Zoom Abolishes Wednesday Ban on Meetings, Labels It an ‘Obstacle to Cooperation’

Zoom Video Communications Inc. has reversed its policy of prohibiting internal meetings on Wednesdays, stating that it impeded collaboration. This decision contradicts the prevailing trend, and even the preferences of its own employees, as more companies aim to minimize unnecessary gatherings.

CEO Eric Yuan revealed the change in a memo sent to employees last week, which also included a new office attendance policy requiring those living within 50 miles of a company location to come in twice a week. It reverses a policy Zoom implemented early in the pandemic after employees wanted to spend less time in meetings so they could have “more time to think, plan, focus and execute.” In March 2022, the company said 84% of employees wanted to continue the policy.

“As we continue our hybrid work, we have decided to make another change and end our Wednesday without an internal meeting,” Yuan said in the memo. “We’re moving fast, and this effort has become more of a barrier to collaboration than intended. And because it’s an increasingly global company, no internal meeting on Wednesday creates a lack of clarity for Zoomers who work across multiple time zones.”

From here on out, Zoom employees should instead “set the personal boundaries you need to be successful,” he said. A Zoom representative declined to comment on the memo.

The CEO’s decision runs counter to what some other companies are doing to reduce unproductive meetings, which waste $100 million a year at large companies. Earlier this year, Shopify Inc. eliminated all recurring meetings with more than two people and began curtailing meetings on Wednesdays. Last month, a Canadian e-commerce company rolled out a calculator embedded in its employee calendar app that estimates the cost of meetings with three or more people. Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc., Clorox Co. and Twilio Inc. have also sought to impose no-meeting days. Typically, the no-meetings policy does not include meetings with customers or vendors.

Objectives

“Our no-meeting initiative was not designed to be a ‘make or break,’ but rather to respect each other’s time and encourage us to take a mental break that we often forget to schedule,” Zoom said in a March 2022 blog post. The same post also outlined the framework for meetings for improvement by creating an agenda with specific goals and limiting the number of participants.Employees reported that 31 percent of meetings could have been skipped if they were held in a loop, a study by the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and software company Otter.ai found.

Yuan’s view that eliminating all-day meetings hurts collaboration is also at odds with existing research. A 2022 study of 76 companies that had implemented meeting-free days found that “autonomy, communication, commitment and job satisfaction improved, leading to less micromanagement and stress, and thus increased productivity.” For example, when meetings were reduced by 40%, productivity increased by 71%.

“Too many meetings undermine effective collaboration, derail employees at their most productive times, and interrupt people’s train of thought,” the authors, including Henley Business School professor Benjamin Laker, wrote in an accompanying paper. Commenting Thursday via email, however, Laker noted that meeting-free days have “potential downsides” if managers don’t tailor policies to specific departments or if fewer meetings cut off connections among employees, especially remote workers.

“When meetings are reduced too much, satisfaction, productivity and collaboration can decrease,” Laker said Thursday. “This is because meetings, although not the most natural form of human interaction, offer an opportunity to socialize. Zoom’s recent policy change likely reflects an understanding of these subtleties and the importance of nurturing relationships.”

Zoom itself has recognized the need for informal interaction outside of scheduled meetings, recently announcing Huddles, a virtual collaboration space where employees can quickly drop in for quick, informal conversations without having to book meeting time with each other. Laker said its decision to end no meetings on Wednesdays could prompt others to follow suit, as “one-size-fits-all policies may not adequately address the complex nature of human collaboration.”