“Companies should be transparent about how they measure performance,” Johnson-Jones notes. “If workers know that they’re being judged against objective, output-based markers - rather than presenteeism - they’re far less likely to feel under pressure to attend meetings which aren’t relevant to them.

“Employers who want to nurture inclusive workplaces where employees are able to thrive should firstly set clear expectations and increase transparency around meetings, and also around the values held by the company and its management, too - focusing on output over presenteeism.”

Then there are the practical steps. First off, when a manager is booking in a meeting, they should question if that meeting is necessary and the best way of getting the desired result. To repeat a common refrain: could this meeting be an email? Scrapping any needless emails means that when a genuinely important meeting happens, people will be more likely to attend.

If getting everyone in one room (virtual or IRL) is required, “it’s vital managers make sure they get the right people in that room,” says Corscadden. “Include everyone who will make a valuable contribution and who needs to be involved in the decision-making process.” That also means not inviting people who don’t need to be there.

Ensure meetings have a clear agenda and purpose that’s visible to everyone. Nothing is likely to induce FOMO and feelings of rejection quite like seeing your colleagues in a meeting that seems like a secret. Along with this, empower people to decline meetings if they look over the agenda and decide that it’s not the best use of their time.

“Requiring that all meeting invitations come with an agenda can help,” Johnson-Jones recommends. “This way, individuals can judge for themselves whether a meeting is relevant to them, and opt out if not. If only part of a larger meeting is relevant to an individual, or they are interested but not required to know about what’s being covered, they should feel able to drop out as needed, or ask for the deck to be circulated afterwards.”

That point about the deck is important, too. Ensure that notes or recordings of the meeting are available, so that no one feels like they’ll miss out if, for example, they just couldn’t make that specific time or didn’t have a spare hour.

In short: the path to getting rid of meeting FOMO is to make meetings better (which often means reducing how many you’re having). Make meetings better, and everyone’s time is used in a better way, engagement rises, workplace happiness rises, and all other good things. Save meetings, save the (working) world.

‘Meeting FOMO’ is a very real thing – here’s how we can fix it