What Do Employees and Businesses Feel About 8 a.m. Meetings at Workplaces?

The latest debate in the workplace post-pandemic after quiet quitting is that around 8 a.m. meetings. According to The Wall Street Journal, the idea of having a meeting at 8 a.m. is dreaded by the employees but advocated by the employers. The real question is, do employees need this early morning meeting amid a lineup of meetings throughout the day? As per Zippia, at least 55 million meetings were held in the US each week as of 2023. That's around 11 million per day and over 1 billion per year! With so many meetings, it's crucial to see which time windows work best for both the employees as well as the businesses.

While there is no hard and fast answer to what time is the best to schedule a meeting, research shows that the sweet spot falls between 10 a.m. and noon if one is looking to focus. Most employees do not seem to like the fact that they have to report so early. This is understandable as it often clashes with things like childcare, fitness, and sleep. The thing is, early morning work hours can work in industries like finance, healthcare, and education. However, it's not necessary in all sectors and can disrupt employee life in some cases. 

Many even reported feeling sleep stress if they had to wake up earlier than usual. A small excerpt from the comedy podcast "Demoted" recently gained traction on TikTok and has sparked a new wave of debate around meeting timings. The conversation went viral and the tweet which shared the clip received more than 30 million views. On TikTok, the now-deleted video had more than 250,000 likes.

"If the norm has been set that the workday is 9 to 5, then I don’t think you can all of a sudden say, 'But on this day we’re going to do an 8 o’clock meeting,'" said Lorna Hagen, a managing partner of Culture Playbook Partners, a business-process improvement firm. She went on to talk about how the managers must let the employees know well in advance, in case they decide to keep a meeting that early in the morning.

"Companies have to be very intentional about what conditions they set," she said. Natalie Marshall who is known on the internet as Corporate Natalie said that sometimes it's important for the business to take early meetings and she had taken early morning meetings when she was working for the consulting firm Deloitte and the cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks. "The corporate world is shifting—employers have to offer more flexibility," she said.

Another study done by WhenIsGood.net analyzed data from thousands of meetings that saw that not many people were willing to join the 8 a.m. meeting. The study found that most people were interested in joining a meeting at around 3 p.m.

“People might say ‘You’re adding to my day,’” or are being insensitive to parents or those with other responsibilities,  Andrés Tapia tells Korn Ferry. He says the revival of the 8 a.m. meeting post-pandemic is a terrible idea. Other experts say that if the managers have to schedule meetings at 8 a.m., then they should also let the employees know and discuss with them before the meeting. Other times, this is simply not needed. "It also might be a meeting that just as easily could be done an hour later, without creating worker angst,"  Maria Amato, global leader of Korn Ferry’s Employee Experience and EVP solutions, says.