This is Part 1 of my three-part series on Work Meetings. Today, we’re looking at the hidden financial drain of the UK meeting culture
Meetings at Work
I’ve spent a lot of my working time in group meetings: Strategy groups. Finance groups. Project groups. Stress groups. No-smoking groups. Health promotion groups. Safer driving groups. Think tanks.
I’ve had various roles too: a manager, a leader, an adviser, observer, a technical expert and, occasionally, the poor soul asked to chair the thing. I’ve seen them in various industries too: construction, the NHS, local government, manufacturing, service industries and training, health.
And I’ll be blunt: most of them were dysfunctional.
Meeting Problems
Here’s what I’ve repeatedly experienced.
- Bullying by the project leader
- Ideas ignored or vetoed for no clear reason
- Hidden agendas surfacing after the meeting
- People agreeing publicly with the dominant voice, then privately disagreeing
- One unstoppable talker nobody reins in
- ‘Tick-box’ meeting where nothing meaningful happens
- Late arrivals given a full recap (rewarding lateness)
- No timekeeping (some items can be discussed for half the meeting and other items ignored)
- No notes, no actions, no accountability
- Running out of time
- Getting stuck on item one and never reaching the rest
- Completed items lingering on the agenda for months
- No action taken, and no consequence
And that’s just a sample.
So if groups are going to work at all, or become functional, plans, behaviour and actions has to be agreed up front. How you start a meeting schedule and stick to the rules, determines how you finish and what you produce. I have written a series of 3 posts to cover the tricky subject of work meetings.
Case Study 1: The Weekly team meeting
I was working on a large project with many ‘specialists’ in my project group. Every Tuesday morning, the whole team were invited to a ‘catch up’ meeting. Eight to twelve of us sat round the table, all from different disciplines, each playing a key part in a large project.
The purpose was simple:
- Update on progress
- Discuss barriers and obstacles to our work
- Flag new issues
Our manager was usually late. We’d chat for ten minutes or so, then the ritual began.
Each person gave a verbal report. Sometimes we’d go clockwise round the table. Sometimes widdershins. Whoever was ‘up’ would be interrogated in forensic detail. Others piled in. Thirty minutes later we moved on to the next person.
Most of it was irrelevant to most of the people in the room. The reportee grilled like a tomato and usually left looking about as robust as one.
My Action
I learned two survival tactics for this meeting very quickly:
- Sit as far away from the manager as possible
- Hope the meeting ran out of time before my turn came
It usually did.
This is a textbook dysfunctional meeting and I hate to think how much these meetings cost.
The Cost of Work Meetings
Meetings don’t just waste time. They waste money — and often more than organisations realise.
A typical UK work meeting might include:
- Junior staff
- Specialists
- Managers
- Really Big Cheeses (senior managers)
Usually most use the UK minimum wage (currently around £11–£12 per hour) as a measure of cost, but it’s completely irrelevant here. People in business meetings are not on minimum-wage and with no accounting for overhead costs, such as holidays, employment taxes etc., that calculation is too low. Also meetings may extend beyond the scheduled time – with no thought for preparation, follow-up emails, corridor conversations and problems with the action lists?
Case Study 2
I called a meeting of my whole team – who were based throughout the UK. They came in cars, planes, trains – most staying in hotels overnight. I set up IT support, lunch – you name it. On the day, we had a special teacher come in to show us how to use the new system for occupational health. With everyone arriving, bags and wires everywhere, I had a message to go to the front gate. Seems the teacher had symptoms of food poisoning and, as we were a food site, had to send him home.
Result – no meeting agenda. No training. I dread to think how much time and money we wasted on that day.
A great learning day for me though. From then on there was always a ‘what if’ conversation and, more importantly, think of alternative ways of doing this training.
Calculate The Real Costs Using ‘Work Meeting Calculator Tool’
As you can see, every time we gather at work, we aren’t just spending time; we are investing company resources. This tool more accurately calculates the True Cost of collaboration – for a one-of meeting or annual costs of regular meetings.
The Maths:
Here is a more accurate way to estimate the cost of one meeting and, depending on the regularity of the meetings, annual costs.
- Rates: Based on 2026 UK averages (including 20% overheads for NI/Pension)
- The 30m Rule: We add 0.5 hours to every attendee to account for prep, follow-up, and the “focus recovery” time required after an interruption.
- Frequency: I have used a 50 week year to account for holiday periods
I have put together (with the help of AI for the formulae) a more realistic ‘Meeting Cost Estimator.’
The image below gives you a flavour of the calculator tool – click on the image or the link below to access the your own downloadable information sheet with instructions.
Screen shot of calculator tool
Here is your link to download the pdf Workplace Meeting Calculator Tool with instructions on how to use it.
Now that you know what those meetings are costing you, how do you know which ones are actually working? In Part 2, I’ll share my ‘Productive or Painful‘ audit tool to help you grade your calendar in real-time.”
Next Steps
This series of posts will be included in my new book: Worklife Services (working title.) Watch out for new titbits and tips as my research progresses. Or why not join my Substack for hot news and background on progress.
The Work Meetings Series:
- Part 1: The Hidden Cost (with Calculator)
- Part 2: Productive or Painful? (with Audit Sheet)
- Part 3: Setting the Standard (with Terms of Reference)
