22 Jan Why Many Meetings Are a Waste of Time (and What to Do About It)

If your meetings aren’t producing better decisions and better results on the floor, they’re not just a waste of time. They’re holding your business back.

After two decades working with pubs, clubs, restaurants and hotels across Australia, there’s one complaint I hear more than almost any other: “We spend too much time in meetings and nothing actually changes.”

In an industry where margins are tight, rosters are fragile and managers are already stretched thin, wasted meeting time isn’t just annoying — it’s expensive. Every hour spent talking without a clear outcome is an hour not spent on coaching staff, fixing systems or driving revenue.

Most meetings aren’t bad because people don’t care. They’re bad because they’re poorly designed.

Why meetings go wrong in hospitality

1. No clear purpose
   Many meetings exist simply because “we always have a meeting on Mondays”. Without a clear reason, they drift into general discussion, venting, or rehashing problems everyone already knows about. If the purpose isn’t obvious in the first two minutes, people mentally check out.
2. Too many people in the room
   Hospitality meetings often include everyone “just in case”. The result? Long explanations, side conversations and people attending who don’t need to be there. If someone can’t directly influence the outcome, they probably shouldn’t be in the meeting.
3. Talking about problems instead of decisions
   It’s common to spend 45 minutes discussing why labour is high or why service standards have slipped — and zero minutes deciding who will do what by when. Without decisions and accountability, the same issues come back next week.
4. Meetings replace leadership
   Some managers use meetings as a substitute for day-to-day leadership. Instead of giving clear direction during shifts, they “save it for the meeting”. This slows everything down and disconnects feedback from the actual work.
5. Hospitality doesn’t stop for meetings
   Unlike office environments, hospitality runs in real time. Holding long meetings during trade lulls or between shifts often means managers are distracted, tired, or thinking about their department rather than the conversation.

How to reduce time wasted in meetings

The good news is you don’t need more meetings — you need better ones, and fewer of them.

1. Cancel meetings that don’t have a decision to make
   Before scheduling a meeting, ask one simple question: What decision needs to be made?
   If the answer is “just an update”, send an email, WhatsApp message or dashboard instead. Meetings should exist to decide, prioritise or solve — not to inform.
2. Set a written agenda — and stick to it
   An agenda doesn’t need to be fancy. Three to five dot points is enough.
   For example:

• Discuss new menu feedback and confirm items to be culled
• Decide staffing changes for next fortnight
• Decide change to opening hours for winter
• Confirm actions and people responsible

If a topic isn’t on the agenda, it doesn’t get discussed. This alone can halve meeting time.

3. Time-box everything
   Hospitality people respect time limits because we live by them. Set a start and finish time and honour it. Even better, time-box agenda items:

• Labour review: 10 minutes
• Customer feedback: 10 minutes
• Decisions and actions: 10 minutes

When people know time is tight, they get to the point.

4. Limit attendance ruthlessly
   If you’re discussing kitchen labour, the head chef needs to be there — the functions coordinator probably doesn’t.
5. Separate problem-solving from venting
   Hospitality is stressful, and people need to be heard — but meetings shouldn’t become therapy sessions.
   A useful structure is:

• State the issue
• Identify the cause
• Decide the fix

If the conversation loops back to complaints, redirect it to action.

6. End every meeting with clear actions
   No meeting should finish without answering:

• What are we doing?
• Who is responsible?
• By when?

Write it down and circulate it. If actions aren’t reviewed at the next meeting, people quickly learn the meeting doesn’t matter.

7. Use short, regular check-ins instead of long sit-downs
   A 10-minute weekly stand-up can replace a 60-minute monthly meeting.
   Quick check-ins focused on numbers, staffing and priorities are far more effective in hospitality than long, infrequent meetings where everything piles up.
8. Push decisions closer to the team

If every issue has to be escalated to a meeting, you’re creating bottlenecks. Empower supervisors to make day-to-day decisions and reserve meetings for bigger, cross-department issues.

The real cost of bad meetings

In hospitality, wasted meeting time shows up as:

• Owners and Managers staying back late
• Poor communication during service
• Slow decision-making
• Frustrated leaders who feel busy but ineffective

Good meetings, on the other hand, create clarity, alignment and momentum. They save time rather than consume it.

The goal isn’t to eliminate meetings altogether. It’s to respect that time is one of the most valuable resources we have — especially in an industry where every hour counts.