A tool from Møtelederskolen
Time is the most expensive resource you have. Answer three questions to see what poor meetings cost you each year – and how much small improvements could be worth.
Start the estimate (15 seconds)Answer three questions and get an estimate of what poor meetings may cost your organisation every year.
No need to be precise. Pick whatever feels closest to the truth.
Lost meeting time per person
0.0 hours a week
Estimated time spent in meetings that could have worked better, including prep and recovery.
Full-time roles lost
0.0 full-time roles
Capacity you already have and pay for, but that doesn't produce results.
Get a more precise assessment
You are probably losing
NOK 0
every year on meetings that could have worked better.
Based on your headcount, typical salary levels and meeting load in your industry, your own estimate of the improvement potential, and an allowance for preparation and refocusing around meetings.
Shorter meetings
If the meetings that could be trimmed were about 15 minutes shorter.
NOK 0
per year
Fewer unnecessary meetings
If you removed roughly 1 in 10 meetings – including the prep around them.
NOK 0
per year
Better decisions and follow-up
If more meetings led to action, and fewer issues had to be revisited. The potential grows when many of your meetings could be better.
NOK 0
per year
Write down what the meeting should lead to. Without a decision point, the meeting is an update that could have been a message.
Cost grows linearly with the number of participants. Share notes instead of chairs.
Swap 60 minutes for 45 and 30 for 25. Work expands to fill the time it is given.
Meetings without clear next steps create new meetings – and double the cost.
The calculator is based on Norwegian salary statistics (Statistics Norway) and on research into meeting load and meeting quality. Meeting load varies by industry – from around 9 % in operational sectors to 20 % in knowledge-intensive ones, against an international average of 15 %.
23 hours
Executives spend an average of 23 hours a week in meetings, up from less than 10 hours in the 1960s. 71 % of senior managers say meetings are unproductive and inefficient.
Perlow, Hadley & Eun, 'Stop the Meeting Madness', Harvard Business Review (2017)
15 %
Organisations spend on average 15 % of their collective working time in meetings – a share that has grown every year since 2008.
Bain & Company, 'Your Scarcest Resource' (HBR, 2014)
31 hours
A typical office employee loses around 31 hours a month in meetings with no real value, and more than half multitask during them.
Atlassian, 'You Waste a Lot of Time at Work'
24 %
Removing unnecessary meetings cut perceived stress by 24 %, improved productivity by 71 % and cooperation by 65 % in a study of 76 organisations.
Laker, Pereira, Budhwar & Malik, MIT Sloan Management Review (2022)
92 %
92 % admit to multitasking in meetings, and 41 % do it often. Attendance is not the same as participation.
Verizon Conferencing / Atlassian studies cited in HBR
2 in 3
Two out of three meetings are seen as unsuccessful by the participants themselves – mainly because of an unclear purpose and a missing agenda.
Rogelberg, 'The Surprising Science of Meetings' (Oxford University Press, 2019)
1 day a week
One meeting-free day a week increased perceived autonomy by 35 %, satisfaction by 15 % and reduced stress by 11 %. Four or more meeting-free days backfired – productivity and coordination dropped by 17 %.
Laker, Pereira, Budhwar & Malik, MIT Sloan Management Review (2022)
+20 %
A meeting takes more time than the calendar shows: your mind lingers on the previous task, and it takes time to prepare and get back into work mode afterwards ("meeting recovery syndrome"). That is why we add 20 % around meeting time.
Leroy, 'Attention residue', Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes (2009); Rogelberg (2019)
These numbers are not a promise of savings. They show what even small improvements in meeting quality can be worth over time. The more employees and meetings you have, the bigger the effect.
Salary basis: Statistics Norway table 11418, average monthly salary for full-time employees by industry. Hourly cost = monthly salary × 12 ÷ 1,695 effective working hours, plus 40 % for employer's social security contributions, holiday pay and pension. Meeting load is set per industry: 17–20 % for knowledge-intensive sectors such as IT, finance and the public sector, and 9–10 % for more operational sectors such as healthcare, construction, manufacturing and retail. No Norwegian statistics break meeting time down by industry, so these are estimates based on international studies (Bain/HBR, Microsoft Work Trend Index). On top of that we add 20 % for preparation before and refocusing after meetings – a deliberately conservative estimate, roughly 10 minutes per meeting hour. The improvement estimates are deliberately cautious: shorter meetings are set at 8 % and fewer meetings at 12 % of total meeting cost. Better decisions and follow-up recover part of the estimated waste – 25 % when few meetings could be better, rising gradually towards 45 % as the share approaches 60 % or more, because the potential is largest where the problem is largest.
The easiest first step
Most people know what a good meeting should look like.
The problem is that few people actually practise meeting skills day to day.
The Gazki Deck gives you 72 concrete skills to practise, one at a time.
Draw a card. Try the skill in your next meeting. Get a little better every day.
A low-threshold move you can start this week.
Møtelederskolen is the online course for anyone who wants to lead meetings that create momentum, clear decisions and more engagement.
Sign up HERE!