It’s the meetings, Stupid!

Peter
WONDERED why the Health Department has no dough? Or thought Tasmania Together was a waste of money? Then follow the cash – it’s the meetings, stupid.

Dutch electronics magazine Elektor in its Jan 2009 issue puts the cost of meetings in Holland (pop. 16 million) at AU$118 billion. Correcting for our population, that would be $3.5 billion spent on meetings in Tasmania. Which is roughly the cost of three new Royal Hobart Hospitals, or supplying drinkable water to towns in our state, or…

Here’s the background, courtesy of Elektor:

Meetings run up vast bills

In The Netherlands, a study was made on this controversial topic. At the end of 2007 their first ‘conference barometer’ indicated that meetings in the Netherlands alone (population around 16 million) cost the country around 60 billion euro (AU$118 billion) a year!

The average Dutch employee spent some three and a half hours a week in meetings, the study revealed. The larger the organisation and the higher the employee’s function, the more time was spent in discussions. Of the annual cost mentioned, around half was accounted for by the meetings themselves. Another 27 per cent was spent on preparations and the remainder went on travel costs.

( *Context for the story about the cost of meetings is the first two pages from Elektor magazine (a Dutch electronics magazine) outlining a big timer that indicates the COST of meetings.)