A sign you're getting a raise? Tons of meetings.

Ever deliberation to yourself, "This gathering could person been an email" arsenic you locomotion retired of what feels for illustration the 30th agency speech of the day?

Turns out, a regular meeting gauntlet could beryllium a motion your institution is doing good — and you could personally benefit.

A caller moving insubstantial examined the narration betwixt various workday activities and wage growth, specified arsenic emails and concentrated individual work. The authors recovered that "meetings are the azygous strongest predictor of costs growth" among the activities they looked at.

Harvard economist David Deming, 1 of the authors of the moving paper, told Business Insider that "companies that person much meetings are, successful general, much successful, and workers who person much meetings thin to acquisition greater costs maturation and profession success."

Correlation doesn't adjacent causation: The results don't mean joining much meetings will automatically bump your pay, aliases that your employer should person much group beryllium successful connected discussions. Instead, a patient fare of meetings could bespeak high-level, demanding activity that tends to bring successful much money astatine some the worker and institution levels.

Deming said that if a worker is getting progressive successful meetings, they're much basal to the employer's work, and if their occupation is much complex, involving circumstantial expertise and specialization, it could mean having to participate successful much meetings.

"Measures capturing the strength of workplace relationship — including gathering hours, gathering clip connected agency days, meeting frequency, and progressive collaboration — are each positively associated pinch costs growth," the authors wrote. "Among these, gathering hours are the strongest predictor."

Meanwhile, the authors recovered broader measures, specified arsenic squad support and shared responsibility, were weakly associated pinch costs progression. "Workers successful environments characterized by much intensive connection acquisition faster costs growth, whereas workers reporting a mostly much affirmative workplace situation do not," the authors wrote.

The study was based connected a 2025 Norstat study of thousands of workers, which examined workplace interactions and squad organization. This was matched pinch administrative information from Norway, covering 2022 to 2024. The researchers measured costs maturation betwixt 2022 and 2023, because 2023 was the astir caller twelvemonth for costs data.

"Because gathering practices are measured successful the 2025 survey, the wage-growth study relies connected the presumption that workers' gathering environments are persistent complete time," the authors said.

Despite the relation pinch costs growth, plentifulness of workers find meetings a drudgery. The researchers recovered that meetings relationship for complete an hr per workday connected mean for the 60% of workers who regularly person them. A Resume Now study of astir 1,000 US workers from December recovered that astir 64% said that astir half aliases less of their meetings were actually productive.

However, the classical gathering has its advantages arsenic well: Any agency worker is apt acquainted pinch being successful an endless information group chat, wishing it would conscionable move into a speedy gathering to get aligned.

"Meetings are the costs you person to salary to shape and coordinate highly specialized, analyzable production," Deming said. "Whether it's producing output for a customer aliases shipping a merchandise aliases immoderate it is, a batch of group person a batch of different assignments and immoderate analyzable activity stream. And the only measurement to get them each connected the aforesaid page is to person meetings."

Deming said group could simultaneously consciousness that meetings are a discarded and that they're necessary. He said, arsenic activity becomes much analyzable and much group activity successful an office, meetings look for illustration the "broccoli of work: wide disliked, but astir apt necessary."

Meetings tin beryllium particularly adjuvant learning opportunities for those early successful their careers, arsenic they tin study from group who person been astatine the institution longer.

"You prime up connected culture, you prime up connected routines, and you get to cognize who knows what and who does what," Deming said.