A lot of large companies do this. I think in the past 2 weeks I have had maybe 3-5 hours to work on my stuff. The rest is meetings and showing others how to do something.
Do you find that this creates a degree of background stress/anxiety? After many years of being a highly effective IC/consultant, I’m still trying to adapt to being primarily a manager with a software engineer title, and not sure how well that’s going. It can feel unsettling.
For me going from being 'the guy who does tons of stuff' to the 'guy who knows stuff' has had some upsides but some downsides. Upside is I get to share with others and get more people going and doing good stuff faster. As a group we are better off. But narrowly on me, however, that has come at a cost of my productivity is lower. I also have to manage expectations of what I can do now with managers. It does make me feel like I am not getting anything done too. But if I can unstick 4 other people I guess it is a win...?
I think many people find it hard to make the transition.
Logically if you can double the productivity of 10 freshers you can contribute more value than you can as a highly productive IC who is 10 times more productive than a fresher. Your instincts as an IC can have you feeling you are not productive at all though.