'Useful subtraction' | By axing meetings, Shopify sets a blueprint for reducing staff burnout

Shopify has axed thousands of meetings from employee schedules for the coming weeks, while also encouraging employees to turn down any meetings they see fit.

According to an internal memo, seen by the likes of Bloomberg and CNN, the Canada-based multinational e-commerce giant is to scrap previously scheduled recurring meetings involving three or more employees. Additionally, it will impose a minimum two week ban on reinstating any of these events back to work calendars.

COO Kaz Nejatian also said in the memo that one of Shopify’s previous initiatives, “meeting-free Wednesdays” will be reintroduced.

According to the company’s own calculations, these moves, described by Nejatian as “useful subtraction,” will remove up to 10,000 events from employee schedules, freeing up more than 76,500 hours.