Meetings cost NOK 230 billion a year – but may be worth it

“Meetings are the broccoli of working life: not especially popular, but perhaps better for us than we think.” Katrine V. Løken, Alexander Willén and Yaling Xu have examined what all those hours spent in meetings cost – and what we get in return.
By Sigrid Folkestad

22 October 2026 07:34

Meetings cost NOK 230 billion a year – but may be worth it

Norwegian employees spend an average of 4.7 hours in meetings every week. But before you cancel your next one: new research suggests meetings may be more important than you think.

– Meetings are a bit like “the broccoli of working life”: they are not particularly popular, but they may still be good for us, says NHH Professor Katrine V. Løken.

Another meeting invitation lands in your inbox. Before long, you have spent almost an entire working day that week in meetings.

New research based on data from more than 9,000 Norwegian employees shows that meetings consume enormous resources. At the same time, the researchers find clear associations between meetings, workplace learning and stronger wage growth.

NOK 230 billion

The study “Meetings” (see facts) is the first to provide a broad economic picture of meetings in the workplace.

Professors Katrine V. Løken and Alexander Willén, and Postdoctoral Researcher Yaling Xu, are co-authors of the paper. All three are researchers at the Department of Economics and the Centre of Excellence FAIR.

The researchers conducted an extensive workplace survey through Norstat, collecting information about meeting activity in Norwegian companies. These data were then linked to administrative register data on earnings, occupation, employer and company finances. This provides a detailed picture of meeting activity and how it is associated with factors such as pay, learning and company performance.

The scale of meeting activity is substantial:

  • The average employee spends 4.7 hours in meetings each week. That is equivalent to 12 per cent of a standard working week.
  • Combining time spent in meetings with wage data, the researchers estimate that meetings account for around 14 per cent of companies’ total wage costs.
  • This corresponds to approximately NOK 88,000 per employee per year, or around NOK 230 billion nationwide.

`And that is a conservative estimate. The figures do not include preparation, travel time or follow-up work after meetings´, says Alexander Willén.

Those whose time costs the most spend the most on meetings

Most employees attend meetings at least once a week, and many attend several. But there are large differences. One in five employees spends more than eight hours a week in meetings.

Unsurprisingly, managers are by far the most frequent meeting participants. The same is true of highly educated employees and those in knowledge-intensive and professional occupations.

The researchers also find that employees who work remotely or in hybrid arrangements attend more meetings than those who mainly work in the office.

`One possible explanation is that formal meetings partly replace the spontaneous interaction that takes place around the coffee machine or in the corridors´, says Katrine Løken.

The association is clear

There are also clear differences between companies. Firms with high turnover and high wages spend more time and money on meetings than other companies, even though their employees’ time is also more costly.

This does not mean that meetings are what make these companies more productive.

`We cannot establish that meetings themselves lead to better results. But the association is clear: companies with extensive meeting activity are often also companies that perform well´.

The upside of all those meetings

But what do we actually do in all these meetings? Planning, problem-solving, information sharing and project coordination account for most meeting activity, the study finds.

Employees in meeting-intensive workplaces report significantly more learning on the job than others. Contact with more experienced colleagues is also associated with stronger wage growth over time.

Greater knowledge transfer within the company is one possible mechanism.

`This suggests that meetings are not just about coordination and status updates. They also facilitate knowledge transfer, training and development´, says Alexander Willén.

The researchers examine a range of activities during the working day, including individual work, administration, email, travel and training.

Strongest association

Of these activities, participation in meetings has the strongest association with subsequent wage growth, Løken explains:

– Meetings are much more than calendar clutter and status updates. They may also be an investment in how knowledge is shared, how employees learn and how organisations work together.

The researchers emphasise that they cannot establish a causal effect. They do not claim that holding more meetings leads to better company performance or higher wages for employees. But the study shows that meetings are closely linked to how modern organisations structure work, learning and collaboration.