Average Knowledge Worker Spends 104 Minutes Per Month on Conference Calls

When communication does not equal engagement. JL

Katie Hafner reports in the New York Times:

A knowledge worker — one whose job focuses on handling information — in the United States spends an average of 104 minutes each month in conference calls. As a result, conference calls give rise to what could well be society’s most widespread, implicitly sanctioned collection of antisocial behaviors.

The minute Marvin Avilez gets on a conference call, he is on his hands and knees.

With his headset on and a rag in hand, he dusts and scrubs his small studio apartment in Manhattan. Mr. Avilez, 42, the chief operating officer of Hiccup, a national wellness program based in New York, starts with the floor, quietly working his way from the corner to the center.

When every inch of the room shimmers, he moves on to the dirty dishes in the sink. “That requires the mute button,” Mr. Avilez said.

Wainhouse Research, a consulting firm in Duxbury, Mass., estimates that a knowledge worker — one whose job focuses on handling information — in the United States spends an average of 104 minutes each month in conference calls. Such calls have become an orgy of multitasking, serving as a backdrop for a free-for-all of household chores, personal hygiene, online shopping and last-minute income tax filing. As a result, conference calls give rise to what could well be society’s most widespread, implicitly sanctioned collection of antisocial behaviors.

Most people would not dream of brandishing a Swiffer, to say nothing of flossing their teeth or extracting unwanted hairs, during a face-to-face meeting with professional colleagues. But the rules change for conference calls.

“It’s all about the extent to which people are held accountable in different settings,” said Juliana Schroeder, assistant professor of management of organizations at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley. “In a conference call, because you don’t have the visuals, no one is being called out for what they’re doing physically.”

Dr. John Halamka, chief information officer of the Beth Israel Deaconess health system in Boston, divides conference calls into three types. Types 1 and 2, in which he is either leading the meeting or playing a major role, require at least a modicum of attention.

For the calls Dr. Halamka labels Type 3, his participation is driven by internal politics rather than substance. “In reality, I could have read a two-paragraph briefing instead of sitting on the phone for an hour,” he said.

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Dr. Halamka, who lives on a farm in Sherborn, Mass., near Boston, said he spent about six hours a week on Type 3 calls. He has used the time to sand and varnish the furniture in his office, walk his dogs, get a haircut or tend to his llamas — restocking the hay feeders, filling water buckets and shoveling manure.

Susan Kostal, who lives in San Francisco and works as a marketing consultant to law firms, said she found it hard to resist emails and Twitter while on a conference call. She does her best to stay partly tuned in to the conversation. When she hears her name, she snaps to attention and chimes in with a response to someone’s remark. “I end up sounding intelligent,” she said, “but I go back and think, ‘I don’t really know what that person said.’”

More than once, Ms. Kostal has made the mistake of taking conference calls from bed. She has one client in Britain, which puts her on calls in the middle of the night in San Francisco. She recalled recently falling asleep during a call and being awakened by her own snoring.

“The sound quality of those calls is so poor, I don’t think anyone noticed,” she said. But she has stopped taking conference calls while supine. “That was a real wake-up call to start paying better attention.”

And in conference calls, no one knows you’re in the downward-dog position. One 52-year-old financial consultant in Manhattan said she spent the time during conference calls working her way through her daily yoga regimen. Like several other people interviewed for this article, she did not want her name used. “The image of my butt in the air isn’t exactly what I want to put out there as my professional persona,” she said.

Aware of the danger of distraction, some people request that conference calls be conducted via video. “You can tell if people are distracted from a person’s tone,” said Jason Reece, a web developer in Atlanta. “People are more likely to be engaged when the camera is on. It inspires a person to be sitting up and paying attention.”

Mr. Reece asks his clients to use videoconferencing. He says there are always people who will resist, telling him their Internet connection is too weak, for example. Giving them the benefit of the doubt, he asks that they put up a still photo. “Even if you only get a photo, it’s more humanizing,” he said.

Art Schoeller, vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research, said it was common for people on video calls to choose the voice-only option. “That does allow for the yoga scenario,” he said.

Mr. Schoeller added that while he had seen some companies require videoconferencing to encourage a higher degree of attentiveness, the conversion from audio to video has remained slow. “Video is on a long, slow curve of more expansive adoption,” he said, “but the industry has long struggled with how to accelerate it.”

Another problem is that of accidental videoconferencing. Dr. Niraj Sehgal, a physician in San Francisco who frequently conducts leadership training sessions online, recalled a recent session during which everyone but he and his co-leader were expected to turn off their cameras.

But one member of the group forgot to do so. “He was sitting there shirtless, chomping from a big bag of chips, oblivious to being seen by 30 other people,” Dr. Sehgal said. “Then I saw a cat walk across the back of his high-backed chair, and it looked like the cat was walking across his head because of the camera angle.”

Many who multitask during conference calls choose activities that take them away from their desk. They argue that their unseen activities engage a different part of their brain, leaving them far less distracted than they would be if they were sitting in front of a computer, succumbing to the lure of email.

Dr. Russ Cucina, 43, an associate professor of hospital medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, spends some 30 hours a week in meetings, half of them conference calls.

“The temptation to look at email is very great,” Dr. Cucina said. “The part of my brain that has to read an email also has to process language in the call. That means that if I start looking at email, a couple of sentences in I’m no longer hearing the call.”

Dr. Cucina’s remedy: Five years ago he bought a set of free weights for his office. During calls he does biceps and triceps curls, along with military presses.

“I can stand there and lift weights all I want while still being fully engaged in the discussion,” said Dr. Cucina, now a very buff man. “And nobody on the call has to know.”

Mr. Avilez has reached a similar conclusion: “When I need to be on target during my calls, I like to pace. It gives me clarity. But it’s hard to pace in my 350-square-foot apartment. So I clean.”