Do meetings during work hours hamper productivity?

As long as meetings are brief and not too frequent, they don't adversely affect productivity. I think meetings should have a specific purpose and not just be held as a routine activity just because they look good as a 'best practice'. In that case, it comes very close to being a waste of time, which we can't afford in today's time-crunched schedules. After all, in a process driven environment, what purpose will regular meetings serve other than filtering down of instructions? Today, with all the tools in place right on our workstations, regular instructions and guidelines can be easily conveyed through the different online messaging systems.

Roles Have Been Flipped

In fact, many meetings are actually held online on tools like Skype and Google Talk but these too, shouldn't be held just as a best practice to keep the team on its toes. Such tactics are old fashioned and have lost their effectiveness in today's work environment. Managers should spend more time reviewing the output of their teams rather than make a ceremony of passing down instructions or wanting to know "issues" in the team during these meetings. All workers in the team are expected to be professionals who should know their respective KRAs, work targets, deadlines, behavioral norms, and other guidelines.

Say No to Micro-Management

All these workplace conditions get reflected in the worklog that the manager has access to. Challenges faced by individual members in the discharge of his or her deliverables could be handled at the level of the team lead. There's no need for the manager to micro-manage every detail in his team by playing up his own profile as that of the super troubleshooter. He might be wrecking his own team's productivity by doing this since it will invariably mean holding more open meetings than are necessary. A brief review meeting once or twice every week is good enough as long the team is performing optimally.