Jabra has published new research, The Cost of a Bad Meeting, highlighting the extent to which technology failures have become normalised in hybrid working environments. The study, conducted independently by research agency Toluna among more than 2,300 knowledge workers across the UK, US, Germany, France, Sweden, Denmark and India, found that 75 per cent of hybrid meetings experience at least one tech failure, with each meeting losing an average of nearly 11 minutes as a result.
Rather than reporting issues through IT support channels, the research found employees increasingly turn to informal workarounds when meetings break down. A third of workers (34 per cent) resort to using a single laptop as the primary room microphone and speaker, three in ten (31 per cent) abandon video entirely to continue audio-only, and one in five (21 per cent) attempt to move the meeting to a different room mid-session.
The research also found the scale of technical strain increases with room size: very large meeting spaces lose 30 per cent more time to technology failures than small rooms, at an average of 12 minutes 39 seconds per session. Microphone problems were reported in 75 per cent of very large rooms compared with 64 per cent of small rooms, while video problems affected 67 per cent of large rooms against 59 per cent of small ones.
Steen Marquard, regional president at Jabra, said: “We’re seeing that meeting failure has become totally normalised. Issues are no longer treated as isolated IT tickets, but as an accepted burden on daily productivity.”
He added: “Organisations wouldn’t tolerate a building where the lights failed in three quarters of meetings, so why do we work around AV issues? When technology fails, it can delay decision-making, impact productivity and undermine the purpose of bringing people together in the first place.”
The research also found wider effects on staff wellbeing, with 87 per cent of workers reporting some degree of meeting dread, and two in five (42 per cent) saying they reach their energy limit within two hours of back-to-back meetings.
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