Raise your hand if you want more meetings on your schedule? No one? Not a surprise. However, for many of us, entire days can go by in which we are just running from meeting to meeting. Sometimes, I wonder when I will find time to do my tasks. This feels imbalanced to me. 

If you are in a position to organize meetings, and to decide whether or not to have a meeting in the first place, there are many things to consider when making such a decision. Often, people decide to call a meeting or not based on their interest in getting everyone in a room together to discuss something that is relevant to everyone. However, I believe we should also be taking into account the cost of a meeting, prior to calling it. The cost of a meeting is easy to figure out if you know what employees earn. Here’s a simple equation to use to assess the cost of time. 

Hourly rate of an employee attending the meeting x number of meeting hours = part of the meeting cost.  

(Mara makes $20/hour x 2 hour meeting = $40 for Mara to attend the meeting.)

Once you do this equation for every employee attending the meeting, add them up to find the total meeting cost.

(Shannon makes $18/hour x 2 hour meeting = $36 for Shannon to attend the meeting.
Corey makes $22/hour x 2 hour meeting = $44 for Corey to attend the meeting.
Mara’s $40 + Shannon’s $36 + Corey’s $44 = $120 in staff time for the meeting.)

First, if you don’t know employees’ hourly rates, you can calculate them based on annual salaries. 

Annual salary / 52 weeks per year / 40 hours per week = hourly rate. 

(Diana makes $45k per year / 52 weeks per year / 40 hours per week = $21.64 per hour.)

From there, put the hourly rate into the first equation above.  

So a 2 hour meeting with Mara, Shannon and Corey would cost $120. If this 2 hours is taking away from sales or services, I must also ask myself if what we are losing in the loss of sales or services (based on how much would could do in 2 hours) and in the spending of staff time ($120), is worth the need for the meeting. 

How do you calculate a meeting’s cost? Tell us in the comments below.