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.
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.