A survey of 2,500 administrative and management staff reveals that three-quarters spend around five hours a week arranging meetings and conference calls.

The research estimates that this is equal to £3,932 of the average manager’s salary and £1,886 of an administrative professional’s, costing the economy around £16.3 billion a year.

Michael Naf, chief executive of Doodle, claims reliance on sending emails to and fro to arrange meetings is creating the drain on time.

He says: ‘Because each meeting has between four to five attendees the ‘reply all’ email threads can spiral out of control and we’ve proven here it’s a big burden on business efficiency.’

The study also shows that just a quarter of meetings are face-to-face, with 35 per cent being conference calls and 30 per cent held over the internet.

Research from law firm Peninsula recently found that up to a quarter of the working day is wasted through employees surfing the internet and responding to personal emails.