Unproductive meetings are a common problem in many companies. With hybrid work becoming more popular, it’s easier than ever to add participants to meetings without much thought. This makes meetings longer and less focused. To fix this, organizations need a shift in meeting culture—one that encourages shorter, more effective meetings.

Developing a new meeting culture along with a new office is a powerful combination for organizational development.

Time spent in unnecessary meetings has become a growing problem for many, especially managers. The rise of hybrid meetings has made it even easier to add participants without them needing to show up physically. As a result, many people find themselves in meetings that aren’t always relevant.

If you feel that you’re wasting too much of your work hours in meetings, keep reading.

Here are five effective ways to reduce the time you spend in meetings and make them more productive.

Always running out of meeting rooms? These 5 strategies can help you make the most of your meeting space.

Many organizations struggle with the feeling that there aren’t enough meeting rooms. However, this issue is often more about perception than reality. The truth is, in most cases, the space available is enough—it’s just not being used efficiently.

Before making the costly decision to rent more space or move to a new location, it’s important to consider a few key factors. By evaluating your current meeting room usage, you can likely uncover opportunities to make the most of what you already have.

You might not realize it, but your meeting rooms could be haunted. In fact, around 30% of the bookings in your office may be "ghost meetings" — booked rooms that no one ends up using.

These ghost meetings may cost your company much more than you think. In many cases, employees may feel like there’s not enough meeting rooms, when the real problem is that there are just too many ghost meetings taking place, which limits the number of available meeting rooms unnecessarily.

Planning meeting rooms without data as your foundation is a fast track to wasted money and dissatisfied employees.

There’s often a significant gap between how meeting rooms are planned and what is actually needed.

Do not fall in the trap of thinking that ‘1 per 15’ is the correct answer. When planning the number and size for your organization, it is not sufficient to simply decide on ‘1 meeting room per 15 employees’ - it’s important to find out what the correct number is to meet the needs. For one organization it can be 1 per 8 employees, while for another it is enough with 1 per 40 employees.