35 Business Meeting Statistics That Will Change the Way You Use Your Time

Business meetings are a “necessary evil” for many professionals. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, most meetings were conducted in person. But with the advent of the pandemic, many had to shift to virtual meetings almost overnight. With the end of the pandemic tunnel in sight later this year with the growing availability of vaccines, face-to-face meetings will most certainly come back. Yet, with many workers indicating they want to remain working remote—at least some of the time—and businesses recognizing the advantages of hybrid workplace environments, a new meeting normal will ensue post-pandemic.

The location for face-to-face meetings can be the difference between a productive and engaging meeting, and one that is unproductive and considered a waste of time by attendees. This is where rented meeting space like Davinci Meeting Rooms is important. Professionals can search for meeting space in over 1,000 locations worldwide—finding and booking rooms that meet their specific requirements. There are a number of factors that need to be considered. 

Revealing Meeting Statistics

As organizations plan their meeting strategy, the following revealing statistics about meetings are revealing and useful:

1. 95% of business professionals believe face-to-face meetings are key to building long-term relationships (click here).

2. Virtual (on-demand) meeting room space is as much as one half the cost of hotel meeting rooms (click here).

3. The magic number of attendees for a meeting is seven per research. When the number grows much beyond seven, attendees tend to break into two separate groups—creating two meetings in one (click here).

4. 220 million meetings occur each year (click here). With as many as 99% of meetings deemed a waste of time by attendees, this amounts to a lot of wasted meetings (click here).

5. 18% of an organization’s time is spent in meetings—which has increased every year since 2008 (click here).

6. Tuesday is cited as the favorite meeting day by professionals (29%), while Monday is listed as the worst day for a meeting (49%) (click here).

7. Nearly 80% of professionals prefer meetings in the morning or right before lunch versus in the afternoon (click here).

8. 78% of professionals believe their meeting schedule is out of control, with upper management (38%) and the direct manager cited as the main causes (click here). 

9. Showing up late is considered the biggest meeting “taboo” across all generations and industry (click here).

10. Surprising, people eating in meetings is seen as 10% more bothersome than those who use their cell phones (click here).

11. The tech industry is 54% more likely to indicate “technology not working” than other industries as a reason their meetings are unproductive (click here).

12. Professionals hate going to meetings so much that they list that they would rather “go to the dentist” and “talk politics at dinner” than attend a meeting (click here).

13. Meetings increased in frequency by 10% after the shift to the work from home with the advent of the pandemic last year, with 70% of professionals noting that they experienced an increase in meetings (click here).

14. Short meetings (30 minutes or less) increased 22% while long meetings (60 minutes or more) decreased by 11% with the new work-from-home normal (click here).

15. One-on-one meetings increased 18% and team social meetings grew 10% with the new work-from-home normal (click here).

16. 34% of workers (before the pandemic) indicate that “companies will widely adopt virtual reality tech for long-distance meetings so workers will feel like they’re present in those meetings” (click here).

17. 45% of professional reveal they are overwhelmed by the number of meetings they attend (click here).

18. Time spent waiting for a meeting to start tallies to a huge inefficiency problem: The average professional loses three days and two hours annually (click here).

19. 40% of workers waste up to 30 minutes searching for a collaborative workspace for a meeting (click here). (Think Davinci Meeting Rooms as an alternative.)

20. Average worker spends one hour and nine minutes preparing for a meeting (click here).

21. Only two to four people are involved in 73% of meetings (click here).

22. Following a detailed agenda and starting on time can reduce meeting times by up to 80% (click here). (Note: Only 37% of U.S. meetings use agendas.)

23. More than 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual and moreover visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than words (click here).

24. 90% of people daydream during meetings (click here).

25. 73% of professionals work on other things during meetings (click here).

26. 69% of professionals check their email during meetings (click here).

27. Video calls seem to engage participants better: 4% of professionals multitask during video calls versus 57% who do during phone calls (click here).

28. Executives spend upwards of 23 hours per week in meetings on average (click here).

29. 65% of managers admit meetings stop them from doing work (click here).

30. Nearly half a trillion dollars are wasted in unproductive meetings annually (click here).

31. 39% of professionals admit they have slept during meetings (click here).

32. 43% of meeting attendees say unclear messages during meetings leads to organizational confusion (click here).

33. Despite negative views on meetings, 95% of professionals list in-person meetings as the most effective way to build relationships at work (click here).

34. The average length of meetings for 41% of organizations is between 31 and 60 minutes, followed by 39% of organizations with meetings between 16 and 30 minutes (click here).

35. 33% of professionals list “relevant people missing from meetings” as a cause for wasted meetings versus 28% indicating “too many people in a meeting” being the issue (click here).

Rented Meeting Rooms for the Hybrid Workspace World

While a resounding number of professionals feel meetings are unproductive and waste time, the reality is that they are not going away. As many organizations move to a hybrid workspace environment following the pandemic, virtual meeting room solutions like Davinci Meeting Rooms will play a critical role. The upside is that they can help solve some of the meeting challenges and problems professionals cited before the pandemic—fast and easy to find and book, technologies that promote collaboration, as well as professional staffs—lobby greeters and business support centers—that enable teams to focus on their work. 

About Patrick Spencer

Patrick Spencer (Ph.D.) is the President and Founder of TIRO Communications that helps companies develop, build, and manage content, customer, advocacy, and demand-gen programs. Included in its offerings is TIRO Cognition Insights, a data analytics tool that enables B2C and B2B businesses to pinpoint what their customers and competitors’ customers are saying and to identify corresponding actionable product, services, competitive, sales, and marketing intelligence. LinkedIn Profile: LinkedIn Website: www.tirocommunications.com