The Hidden Driver of Job Satisfaction? Your Feelings About Meetings

Based on the research article “Employee Satisfaction With Meetings: A Contemporary Facet of Job Satisfaction” by Steven G. Rogelberg, Joseph A. Allen, Linda Shanock, Cliff Scott, and Marissa Shuffler (Human Resource Management, 2010).

Take a look at your calendar this week. How many meetings do you have? How many leave you feeling energized versus drained? For many professionals, a calendar filled with poorly run meetings is a daily frustration—a sinkhole of time, attention, and energy. We complain about aimless conversations, unclear purposes, and the nagging sense that our most valuable hours are being wasted.

But what if this disappointment matters more than we think?

The research by Rogelberg and colleagues shows that how you feel about your meetings isn’t a trivial annoyance—it’s a measurable, meaningful predictor of overall job satisfaction. This isn’t just about meeting efficiency; it’s about how everyday emotional experiences at work shape how satisfied we are with our jobs.

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Takeaway 1: Meeting Satisfaction Isn’t Optional — It Predicts Job Satisfaction

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In their paper, the researchers argue that satisfaction with meetings should be viewed as a distinct facet of job satisfaction—alongside other classic components like satisfaction with pay, supervision, coworkers, and the work itself. Using affective events theory, they propose that meetings act as affect‑generating experiences that influence how employees feel about their work overall.

Across two large survey studies (Study 1 with 201 workers and Study 2 with 785 workers), the authors found:

• Meeting satisfaction positively and significantly predicted overall job satisfaction, even after statistically controlling for individual factors (like negative affect) and traditional job satisfaction facets (work, pay, supervision, coworkers).
  
  
• Factor analyses showed that meeting satisfaction is a distinct psychological facet, not just a reflection of other job attitudes. In other words, how you feel about your meetings explains a meaningful portion of variance in your overall job satisfaction—not peripheral noise but a real part of the job satisfaction picture.

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Takeaway 2: Poor Meetings Are Not Just a Side Effect — They Matter Independently

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One intuitive idea is that employees who dislike their job generally will also dislike their meetings. However, Rogelberg et al. found that meeting satisfaction matters independently of these broader attitudes.

Even after accounting for:

• satisfaction with supervision, coworkers, and communication
• individual differences such as a tendency for negative affect,

meeting satisfaction still predicted job satisfaction.

That means: You can have a supportive boss, friendly coworkers, and good pay—yet still be dissatisfied with your job if your meetings are consistently frustrating or unproductive.

Meetings aren’t just a logistical time‑block—they’re a unique psychological context where actors interact, make sense of work, build trust (or erode it), and experience working life in real time. Because they are recurring, shared experiences that involve functional, relational, and cultural work, they can independently shape how workers feel about their jobs.

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Takeaway 3: More Meetings = More Influence on Satisfaction

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The researchers also found that the link between meeting satisfaction and job satisfaction grows stronger as employees attend more meetings.

This “meeting load” effect makes intuitive sense:

• If meetings are rare events in your week, the emotional impact of each one on your overall mood or job attitude is limited.
  
  
• But if your calendar is dominated by meetings—as is common for managers, team leads, and many knowledge workers—the quality of those meetings becomes a primary filter through which you evaluate your work.

The study’s data show that meeting demands (how many meetings you usually attend) moderate the relationship, strengthening it when meeting time is high and weakening it when meeting time is low.

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Conclusion: Time to Take Meetings Seriously

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The evidence is clear: Meetings aren’t just logistical necessities or time slots to fill. They are emotional, interactive work events that shape how employees feel about their day‑to‑day work life.

Satisfying meetings aren’t “nice extras.” They’re meaningful contributors to job satisfaction that stand on their own.

Companies often invest heavily in surveys of pay, manager effectiveness, and career paths—but overlook the one activity that consumes tens of thousands of hours each year: meetings. If you want to truly understand employee happiness, engagement, and retention, measuring meeting satisfaction might be one of the most impactful levers you have.

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