Honestly, I think the study sort of damns itself with this line:

> Time spent on coordination activities and meetings increased, but uninterrupted work hours shrank considerably.

You can easily translate this as:

> Without workers in the office, middle management was left to spend additional time on pointless meetings, inhibiting their workers from spending their time on work tasks.

If that is true, let's consider the facts:

1. Workers worked longer hours. 2. Workers spent more time in meetings than before. 3. Workers achieved roughly the same output.

Now, if we stare at these three things really hard, I think the conclusion is that additional meetings do not play the supplemental role that many managers seem to believe it does, and in fact minimizing meetings will increase productivity.