Business Notes Office Hours

The secretary's reply is all too familiar: "I'm sorry, he's in a meeting." No wonder. A survey commissioned by Corporate Headhunter Robert Half shows that the average executive spends 16 1/2 hours a week, or 21 of his 40-hour workweeks a year, in meetings. Thus an executive with a salary of $45,000 earns $18,559 a year just for sitting in meetings. Moreover, nearly one-third of those gatherings, or six weeks' worth of each executive's working year, are considered unnecessary by the people attending them.

The survey, conducted by Cincinnati-based Burke Marketing Research, showed that the biggest time wasters are regularly held affairs. Says Half: "A lot of companies schedule a meeting every Wednesday at 8:30, for instance. They may not need one every week, or they may need one every day. But it doesn't make sense to hold regular meetings with no agenda." Alas, little hope is in sight. Laments Half: "America leads the world not in steel or textiles but in meetings. The problem is, how do you export meetings?" There will be a meeting next Thursday at 8:30 a.m. to discuss that subject.