Project leaders and team members may become disheartened by and irritated with other members who are absent at meetings. The members who showed up for the meeting feel disrespected and that the no-show member does not appropriately value the importance of their meetings, the team, or their project. Often these feelings could have been prevented by establishing some rules for meeting attendance and associated penalties for non-attendance. Presented here are a few ideas for resolving the problems meeting absenteeism may cause for groups.

If the meeting is for informational sharing only, some teams will allow a substitute to be sent in the place of a regular member. The belief is that anyone can provide an update. The problem with this is that the substitute may know the general information but may not be able to provide answers to specific questions or have enough background knowledge to help make decisions. If substitutes are allowed for information sharing only, then the regular member must let the meeting leader or facilitator know in advance who will be substituting for them.

If it is a team meeting where problem solving and decision-making is to occur, then substitutes should not be sent as they will not have enough background in the team accomplishments or processes to be helpful to the team. Instead the absent member must work in advance of meeting date with the team leader or meeting facilitator to decide how their input will be accomplished or if the team can proceed without input or representation from the absent member.

If a regular member misses several meetings, then the team needs to decide whether or not this person is the correct person to be a member of the team. If they are the best representative and are absent due to other work commitments or difficulty in getting to the meeting location, and then the team can decide if their team meeting time or location should change. If the team decides it is a lack of commitment to team or project issue, the leader or team may want to consider asking for a replacement for this often absent member if representation from their department or group is necessary.

It is important to set meeting attendance and participation requirements at the beginning of the team or project. If the team waits until someone violates an unwritten rule or perceived requirement, then it may be too late to solve the problem or it may take longer to enforce since the rules were not defined early in the process. For attendance tracking purposes, the team may choose to record what members are present and not present in the meeting minutes. An alternative may be that the project leader or the team chooses to have a member assigned the responsibility of tracking this information on a spreadsheet and making the team aware if a recurring attendance problem is happening at meetings.

Every meeting group should consider what ideas may work for resolving the issue of absenteeism in their meetings. When considering ideas, the team needs to be aware that they need to be selective in establishing rules for their meeting attendance and enforcing penalties for not adhering to the rules. Having documented rules and a process for enforcing the rules will help all members to feel more respected and to recognize the value of meeting time too. Members continuing to be absent at meetings may be reduced once all members understand the important of adhering to the rules and acknowledging the importance of team meetings.