Make sure you have the current time in your digital signage layouts for easy reference, show meeting schedules on screens, and include start and end times in your reminder messages. There should be no excuse for coming late to a meeting if you use your digital signage effectively.

Digital room signs and calendar apps can also save time. The Wall Street Journal says that 40% of employees spend up to half an hour each day searching for meeting locations or spaces. That’s 10 hours a month per person, 120 hours a year (or three full work weeks – simply looking for where they need to be). Room signs can display meeting schedules outside each room so people can quickly find that they’re in the right place, and some have red and green lights to indicate open rooms for pop-up meetings. If everyone has access to your room-booking app, they can find a space before they ever leave their desk.

Keep Focus

You should also establish ground rules for conduct – people need a system in place to make things run efficiently. The meeting should have a clear leader, who cedes control for limited amounts of time on an as-needed basis, and then gets it back. If it makes things run faster, maybe different agenda items can have different leaders.

Some companies strictly prohibit any personal technology in meetings. A Verizon Conferencing White Paper prepared by InfoCom finds that 73% of employees bring other work with them to meetings. This means they aren’t paying attention. They also find that a staggering 91% of professionals say they daydream during meetings, and 39% say they have even dozed off.

However, tech can be useful. Many companies are using software like LessMeeting and UberConference to make things run more smoothly. Even Evernote, Google Docs or One Cloud can be used to supply preparation materials, as well as make meeting summaries available and easily accessible.

You want your meetings to be as data-driven as possible. Decisions and discussions should be based on facts, not assumptions or people’s experiences. You can make that data available using cloud storage, and display data visualizations, reminders and access links on your digital signs.

It’s Not Over When It’s Over

The final complaint in the top five is that there is no follow-up. Make sure to have someone taking detailed notes during your meeting, and supply a post-meeting summary. Again, cloud-based document storage saves time for everyone, and you can display links to the summary on your digital signs.

You also might want some feedback from participants. It’s a simple matter to create an online post-meeting evaluation form for people for fill out. Set a time limit for this, and use your digital signage to remind people of the approaching deadline. Allowing people to submit anonymously will almost certainly increase participation.

Consider Alternatives

Maybe you don’t need a meeting room for nine people for 60 minutes. One alternative is to break a meeting into a series of micro-meetings – 5-10 minute segments, where only the people who need to talk about a certain topic or agenda item go off in a corner and do that, then come back to the main group and break apart into other micro-meeting groups. Sort of speed dating for a meeting.

Another form of micro-meeting doesn’t even use a room – quick talks and updates in huddle spaces and conversation pods can be far more effective, and less time-consuming, than everyone traipsing into a room, sitting down, and then starting.

Stand-up meetings are also becoming increasingly popular. Like the micro-meeting model, only those that need to be in on the conversation participate. No one sits – this creates focus and forces them to keep things short and sweet, and discussion relevant. Brandeis University has created a good infographic on making meetings more productive and efficient, and stand-up meetings is one way. Pinnacle Projects also has a detailed how-to guide for stand-up meetings. Just remember that this is only appropriate for certain types of meetings – it’s not a great way to conduct a planning meeting or technical discussion

If your workplace is especially meeting-heavy, consider having a meeting off-site. Heading to a nearby café, or a lunch meeting at a restaurant, or even in the park or on the lawn outside can really change the atmosphere of a meeting and breathe some much-needed fresh air into people who spend all day either at their computer or in meeting rooms. Some companies are even having micro-meetings on commuter trains or buses, with the caveat that things must be resolved by the time the vehicle gets to its destination.

Mixing it up and deploying a combination of meeting types will keep things feeling fresh and help alleviate meeting burnout.

Digital signage is a great way to advertise these different types of meetings, and to give people the information they need to prepare in advance, get where they need to go, and help follow-up so your decisions are adopted quickly.