We all attend a lot of meetings. Meeting room management is important for every organization because it affects your bottom line in terms of efficiencies, productivity and space utilization. Here are 12 meeting facts and stats, along with some questions to consider for meeting room management:
- 11 million meetings are held in the United States each day on average. That adds up quickly to 55 million a week and 220 million a month. By the end of the year, the meeting total is well over a billion.
- The time employees spend in meetings has risen around 10% each year, since 2000.
- $338 is the average salary cost of a meeting
- Keep in mind that the average $338 salary cost per meeting is an adjusted average that does not include high-paid CEOs and other business leaders. Those meetings can cost upwards of $20,000 per event.
- Staff, task force and information sharing meetings are the most common meeting type. They account for 88% of total meetings held.
- The average meeting length is between 31 to 60 minutes.
- While this likely occurs because it often takes a little while to get everyone on the same page, it probably also derives from the fact that 30 and 60 minutes are the time blocks selectable on calendaring apps.
- Parkinson’s law claims that work expands to fill the amount of time allotted to it. So, if 60 minutes are allotted to a meeting, that’s probably how long you’ll be there.
- 4% of meeting time is considered unproductive by participants
- Perhaps one of the reasons that so much meeting time is considered unproductive is that so few meetings actually lead to any decisions. The most common complaint people had about meetings is that they were inconclusive. The next most frequent complaints, that participants are poorly prepared and/or organized, don’t help either.
- 63% of meetings are conducted without a planned agenda – Following a detailed agenda and starting on time can reduce meeting times up to 80%
- 9 out of 10 people daydream in meetings
- 73% of people work on other things during meetings
- 40% of employees waste up to 30 minutes a day searching for meeting space
- 53% of conference rooms are designed to accommodate seven or more people – 73% of meetings involve only two to four people
- Statistically speaking, meeting rooms are only in use 36% of the time. This means that, in an average 8-hour working day, over five hours’ worth of workspace is going to waste
Room Booking Questions:
- What is the internal cost of operating each room (include space rental, furnishings, AV/IT, etc.)?
- Do you have a room booking system in place for centralized tracking?
- How many no-shows are happening per week? How many double-bookings?
- What is the average number of people per booking, per room? Do they match room capacity?
- Are meeting lengths matching room bookings? Or, are booked rooms sitting empty?
- Are there any peak times for bookings? Or slow times, where rooms could be repurposed?
- Could a hotel or huddle space be used instead to accomplish the same goals?
Wondering how digital room signs can help your organization better manage meeting rooms? Contact us. In the meantime, download our handy infographic with these impressive meeting facts:
