Time is money! Shopify SHAMES workers for holding ‘pointless’ meetings by embedding calculator in their calendar apps that counts down the cost on the event – with 30 minutes running up to $1,600
- The tool, a plug-in embedded in employees’ Google calendar app, uses staffers’ compensation data and salary to put a price tag on the prospective event
- While individual salaries are all carefully calculated, they will not be put on display along with the meeting’s overall purported cost, COO Kaz Nejatian said
- After only being rolled out Tuesday, the calculator already found that an average 30-minute meeting with three employees can cost between $700-$1600
Shopify has just waged war on in-person meetings – by introducing a calculator that shows employees how much it costs to hold such congregations.
The tool, a plug-in embedded in employees’ Google calendar, uses staffers’ compensation data to put a price tag on the prospective event, after breaking it down by each attendee.
That said, while individual salaries are all carefully calculated, they will not be put on display along with the meeting’s overall purported cost, according to the plug-in’s creator.
After only being rolled out Tuesday, the calculator has already found that an average 30-minute meeting with three employees can cost anywhere between $700-$1600.
That amount can quickly swell when high-paid execs in the C-Suite attend, Chief Operating Officer Kaz Nejatian warned Tuesday, after coming up with the concept shortly after being promoted to the position in September.
Canadian commerce firm Shopify has just waged war on in-person meetings – by introducing a calculator that shows employees how much it costs to hold such congregations (seen here)
According to its creator, Iranian-born COO Kaz Nehatian, the tool uses staffers’ compensation data to put a price tag on the prospective event, after breaking it down by each attendee
‘The goal of this thing is to show you that time is money,’ Nejatian – the founder of mobile payment application Kash and a former product manager at Facebook – said of the new tech in an interview with Bloomberg Wednesday.
‘If you have to spend it, you think about it,’ the Iranian-born exec added, before explaining the reasoning behind his somewhat unique creation.
‘No one at Shopify would expense a $500 dinner. But lots and lots of people spend way more than that in meetings without ever making a decision.’
The new tool, Nejatian continued, comes as part of the company’s yearlong push to put the kibosh on unnecessary gatherings, after doing away with all recurring meetings with more than two people earlier this year.
In the time since, the firm has taken it a step further, by discouraging all meetings on Wednesdays.
The goal of these initiatives, the COO explained, is to ‘change the default answer from yes to no.’
In another interview, this time with tech journalist Peter Wang, Nejatian further described his lukewarm outlook on called gatherings.
‘A meeting is a bug that some other process didn’t work out,’ Nejatian told Wang Wednesday, before the writer shared some of the contents of their conversation to Twitter.
‘Imagine if Van Gogh had to paint Starry Night while perpetually being interrupted every 20 minutes,’ Nejatian reportedly reasoned.
‘No matter how many meeting rooms are available, there never seems to be enough.’
In another interview, this time with tech journalist Peter Wang – shared some of their conversation to Twitter – Nejatian further described his lukewarm outlook on called gatherings
