Is It Ever Ok To Have An Early Morning Meeting?

Proponents of 8 a.m. confabs say they're useful for coordinating global teams across different time zones

- Ann-Marie Alcántara

Your calendar is full of meetings. There are weekly check-ins, one-on-ones, hybrid planning calls, the meeting before the meeting and the meeting after the meeting. One gathering inflames passions like no other: the 8 a.m. meeting.

Whether an early-morning meeting is a must-do or sign of management overreach depends on your feelings about work-life boundaries, and sometimes, your rung on the corporate ladder.

Early-morning work hours are a hallmark of the finance and healthcare industries as well as education, and a standby of high-powered executives. Proponents of 8 a.m. confabs say they're useful for coordinating global teams across time zones. Others say they disrupt personal time and school drop-offs and can throw off the rest of the day by upsetting their normal routines.

The reshaping of work and life wrought by the pandemic - plus a rising generation of professionals who are more comfortable than previous generations voicing their boundaries has intensified the debate.

Jake Rudy, a human resources specialist in Minneapolis, says 8 a.m. meetings give him sleep stress. Rudy, whose workdays normally begin at 9 a.m., finds he doesn't sleep as well when he knows he has to get up earlier than usual.

"If I have to push myself to an 8 o'clock meeting, I really had better have a good reason for being there," says Rudy, 36 years old.

A clip from the business comedy podcast "Demoted" that recently made the rounds on TikTok has unleashed a wave of commentary about meeting times. One of the hosts read a listener email about a Gen Z employee missing an 8 a.m. meeting because of a workout class.