what should I say when people miss meetings?

by Alison Green on May 22, 2025

A reader writes:

I’m the president of a small grassroots not-for-profit board and I have plenty of virtual meetings with other board members, volunteers, community partners, and staff for one reason or another. I’m wondering if you have any suggested language for when people no-show for meetings. It’s a relatively minor issue, but it happens often enough to be pretty irritating. I’m not necessarily asking for language about setting expectations for attending meetings in general, but words to use in the immediate aftermath: when I don’t know what happened and so I’m partially worried but also annoyed.

I try to give the benefit of the doubt, so I’ll send things like, “Missed you earlier, I hope everything is alright!” and something about rescheduling. I don’t want to ask them directly what happened because it’s not my business, and I don’t want to sound like I’m lecturing someone about meeting etiquette when they may have had a legitimate emergency. But sometimes people don’t respond at all, or they might go right to the rescheduling part without any kind of explanation. Or worse, there is a bad explanation and still no apology or acknowledgement that they wasted my time. I’ve gone through this and had people no-show for the rescheduled meetings as well.

I know some of this is inevitable because “life,” but at the same time it also seems like some people forget there is an actual human at the other end of a calendar invite. Is there a way to make this clear and dissuade them from doing it again without being a potentially insensitive jerk? I want to make sure there wasn’t a miscommunication about the date/time. I want to make sure they are okay/not incapacitated. But otherwise, ideally I’d want them to know what they did isn’t cool and to please not do it again. I’m a volunteer myself and don’t have the time or bandwidth to wait around and chase after people.

We are fully remote, which makes this more problematic. It would be a lot easier if I could pop by someone’s cubicle to get visual cues and proceed accordingly, but these “conversations” are usually happening over email/Teams.

A few things:

* Can you send out confirmations the morning of the day the meeting is scheduled? Just a quick, “Just wanted to confirm our call for this afternoon. Does 3:00 today still work for you?” Ideally you could automate this.

* If someone does miss a meeting, make it sound like more of an inconvenience than you’re currently doing. “Missed you earlier, I hope everything is alright” is fine if this happens to you a couple of times a year. When it’s happening regularly, I’d switch your language to, “Hi, I’m waiting on the line for our 3pm call — are you still able to join?”

* If someone is a repeat offender, name that specifically: “We’ve scheduled a few meetings where you didn’t show up and I didn’t know so was waiting around, which is tough with my schedule. Is there something we can do differently so that doesn’t happen?” (You might be thinking the “we” there is disingenuous since clearly they are the one who needs to do something differently, but I think it can be genuine; you’re allowing for the possibility that there’s something you could change on your end too, like maybe they think this doesn’t need to be a call at all and you could just email them, or who knows what.)

* If this is happening with paid staff who you manage, you should say, “You’ve missed two scheduled meetings with me recently. Can you do whatever needs to be done with your calendar management to make sure it doesn’t continue to happen?” If it keeps happening after that, treat it like you would any other performance issue; it’s a big deal to repeatedly ghost one’s boss, particularly once they’ve been warned about it. (I’d also be concerned that if they’re doing it to you, their boss, they’re doing it to other people too — possibly including volunteers and donors — and I’d want to poke around to find out.)

Last, because this is happening a lot, it’s worth checking that you’re using people’s time well. Are you guilty of scheduling meetings for things that could have been an email? Or of having meandering calls that take 45 minutes for something that could take 10? In other words, and especially with people who are volunteering their time, are there ways you can ask for less of it? Maybe not! But because it’s happening a lot, it’s something I’d look at. And you might also ask a colleague who you trust to be blunt if they think anything like that is a factor.

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{ 73 comments }

{ 73 comments… read them below }

  1. Anonym*

    “Hi, does this time still work for you, or should we reschedule?”

    People usually reply with apologies and an answer. But I do work in a company where missing meetings and even being significantly late is not the norm, so YMMV.

    1. Anon for this*

      I’m wondering if the mix of volunteers, board members and community volunteers has muddied the waters for the staff… If I have six meetings a year with OP and each one has 50% of the expected attendees, and the boss (no shade, just speculating) is “well, let’s move on, there’s nothing we can do, I would probably feel it’s no big deal.
      OP, I think once you start using the wording of Alison and the others, you will be able to reset expectations and honestly benefit everyone.
      You don’t want to insult/offend anyone, but you are really hurting your organization by letting people de-prioritize it.
      People will adjust. They will learn to speak up and say, “no, I can’t do that” or they will stick to their commitment. It will take time, but you will be better off for it.

      1. LW*

        Should have been clearer that there aren’t usually a mix of roles at a given meeting, but a variety of types of meetings (one-on-one with a community partner, next a board committee, etc). But point taken!

    2. green beans*

      Yes, I use a variation of this, and it’s super helpful. if they don’t respond, then I follow up with “hope everything is okay – please let me know when you get this.”

    3. Gumby*

      I have an acquaintance (we’ll call her Cassie) who somehow doesn’t think meetings / planned events are going to happen unless they are re-verified the day of. It is the strangest thing to me. If I make plans, I keep them by default. If there is some reason I cannot, I let you know. I’m not perfect, I’m sure I’ve mixed up days or whatever at some point. But in general – if I make plans with you, expect to see me at the planned time and place.

      I had been storing a fair amount of household goods / clothes / whatever for Cassie while she had a too small living space. She finally moved into a slightly larger apartment and wanted her stuff – great! I am happy to bring it over! (Cassie doesn’t have a car.) We had agreed to transfer the stuff on Saturday at 10 a.m. I spent an hour loading my car and drove to her place. Whereupon she was surprised that I was there, told me she wasn’t prepared, and I’d have to take all her junk back, put it in the corner of my living room again, and we’d reschedule for another day. When I protested that we had scheduled it for this time, she replied that since I hadn’t texted to say I was coming (had she texted to ask? no.) she assumed I wasn’t and made other plans for her day. Ugh. Yeah, I noped out last time she asked me to store things for her again.

  2. slim_pickins*

    Went through this a little recently with a direct report. After multiple conversations about calendaring and hammering in good time management, ended up at:

    “This is an expectation for your role and in the handbook. Further conversations will be formal warnings, which neither of us want!”

    Still not perfect, but improved. The biggest reason it’s not a bigger deal is the report is usually good at showing up externally. Weird dynamic to have to say “please come to things on time and don’t just show up 30 minutes late with coffee” but alas. That’s how it is sometimes. Only so many times you can say “turn on Google calendar notifications if you need to, but like, figure it out FFS.”

    1. Mesquito*

      I think that works for paid staff, and you could have modified versions for volunteers who are in a role that expects commitment, but not for community partners. and the fact that it’s happening with fellow board members AND community partners AND staff is worth looking into

    2. Mad Scientist*

      Wish I could have done this with a former coworker, but I didn’t feel like I had the standing to give that kind of feedback. But she regularly missed or was late to meetings, both internal and external, once showing up around an hour late to an onsite client meeting (and when she did finally show up, she was completely unprepared). Sometimes she had a legitimate excuse, but even then, it was frustrating given the pattern. And when if the meeting was just with me, the excuse would often be “I thought our meeting was tomorrow”, even if she was the one who scheduled the meeting.

      I probably could have or should have passed along this feedback to our supervisor, but at the time, it felt petty. In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t…

      1. Observer*

        Sometimes she had a legitimate excuse, but even then, it was frustrating given the pattern

        This points to something that people tend to forget. When you have a solid track record people will generally cut you some slack when something goes a bit wrong. But when you have a pattern? They don’t see *reasons*, they see *excuses* and they get annoyed.

        at the time, it felt petty. In hindsight, maybe it wasn’t…

        I can see how it felt petty. But also, I think that it really wasn’t.

        1. JustaTech*

          Yes about the pattern: I used to have a coworker who was always late to meetings, not a huge deal except that he was the person who had created the meeting and therefore the only person who could “launch” the virtual meeting – we could call in but we couldn’t even talk to each other until he put in his code. This was annoying but not a big deal until we started having meetings with external groups in other time zones where we were making a kind of big ask with the meeting time *and* we didn’t have any way to tell them “We’re all just waiting for Bob”.

          Then finally he was late one more time than I could take and I very politely and professionally run it up the ladder to my 2X boss – and of course that was the time that Bob had been in a (very minor) car accident. Was this mostly the fault of the system that required that only one person could start a meeting? Yes, of course, but it was still not great.

  3. Hiring Mgr*

    I’m not sure what you are doing in the moment now, but after 4-5 minutes I would text/call/email them and ask if they can still make the meeting or would they like to reschedule? They’ll definitely reply

    I wouldn’t sit there on the Zoom and then send them a note later that day -don’t nobody got time for that

    1. Aggretsuko*

      Office policy here is “wait for 15 minutes on Zoom, message them after 5 minutes of lateness, if there’s no response, close Teams.” And some people will show up around oh…22 minutes :P

  4. Beth*

    If a coworker doesn’t show for a meeting, I’ll message a few minutes in with a quick “Hey, is this still a good time?” If it is, it reminds them to show up (sometimes they just missed their calendar reminder!). If it’s not, it lets us reschedule without wasting a lot of my day. Routinely missing meetings without notice and without responsiveness to messages would be seen as a big performance issue.

    I think it’s harder if it’s volunteers, honestly. When you both work for an organization, you have an obligation to meet a certain level of diligence. When you volunteer, you’re giving your time–the dynamic is different. If you’re often running into this problem with volunteers, I’d consider whether all of the meetings are actually necessary; if they are, I’d send a more polite confirmation maybe a day ahead of time (e.g. “Looking forward to our conversation about ___ tomorrow! Is 3pm still a good time for you?”) to give them a reminder and a chance to reschedule if need be.

    1. anona*

      I really wonder whether/why so many meetings are necessary too, and it is harder with volunteers. There must be a better way to utilize their time. Who volunteers for endless meetings? In my experience, people volunteering for nonprofits generally have other jobs and are hoping to be involved in more hands-on or immediate gratification type work in their volunteerism; maybe save the planning or whatever the meetings are about for paid employees.

      1. AI Don't Wanna*

        I agree re: OP checking on what they’re asking of volunteers with regard to meetings. I volunteer a fair amount, and am in the process of leaving one of my volunteer projects because it ended up entailing more meetings than my sanity can currently handle. At a minimum, it might be worth considering whether meetings are actively engaging volunteers (e.g. is there a collective activity/action happening in the meetings, do volunteers get to give feedback?) or whether the meetings are just relaying information that could be delivered via email.

        1. LW*

          Some are more like quasi interns, but no one person has a bunch of meetings beyond orientation unless it’s what they signed up for.
          So as one example, we might agree they will sit in on a particular group’s meetings to learn about the project they want to help with and be assigned tasks. And then they just don’t come. In that case the show goes on in their absence but the group thought they would have help that isn’t there and someone needs to follow up to see what the problem is and if they really do plan to be there moving forward. It’s a hassle all around.

  5. Ann Nonymous*

    Just came here to say that I’m irritated on your behalf. It’s so rude to both miss a meeting and then not be apologetic over it. I do think you should call or ping them about 5 minutes after the “start” as I think we’ve all periodically lost track of time or actually forgot, including forgetting to put it in our calendars or set an alert.

    1. LW*

      thank you! I agree and I’m not perfect either. But owning and acknowledging seems like the bare minimum.

  6. General von Klinkerhoffen*

    Chortling at this because I arrived at 9am today for a 9am meeting and one participant wasn’t even in the building yet, so they suggested I come back at 9:30.

    1. Nonprofit ED*

      I had this happen at a job I had years ago. There was a meeting at 10 am. I was the only sitting in the conference room at 10 am. Finally the CFO came in about 10 minutes later. I asked if I got the time wrong. She said “No, everyone always shows up late to the meetings.” My first thought was what have I gotten myself into!

  7. Saturday*

    I feel like people miss and reschedule meetings a lot more now that so many meetings are held remotely. Since people aren’t leaving their desks, people feel like missing isn’t as big of a deal. Not saying that’s good, just something I’ve noticed.

    1. Elitist Semicolon*

      I was just talking with a friend about this – regardless of whether the meeting itself is remote, there seems to be a lingering sense of “time doesn’t matter” that’s left over from so many people having to work remotely all the time. That is, if everyone has to be online anyway, then it doesn’t matter if someone misses a meeting because they’ll just catch a colleague at some other online moment. And with Outlook and other apps having an icon/symbol for “available,” it’s easier to tell when someone is free. But that doesn’t translate well to missing in-person meetings – my friend teaches in-person art classes and private lessons, and she said SO many people schedule and just don’t show up. Some just forgot, or some are like, “yeah, sorry” with no further explanation, and some book a private group lesson, ask to pay in person, and then…don’t show up. (She’s stopped allowing that last.). I’ve seen the same thing with my own appointments (I also work with students, though in a different context): folks schedule and then neither show up nor send some sort of apology/reschedule request. I’m now at a point where I decline meetings with folks who do that more than once and instead send them a note explaining why I’m declining. Just about no one responds to the note.

      1. Tiny Soprano*

        Yes I feel like I’ve noticed that too! I think it’s a function of people’s perceived constant availability.

        My grandma noticed a big increase in people cancelling and moving meetings and social appointments after mobiles became a thing (she worked from the 70s through to the early 00’s, so she saw the change in action). The increased ability to contact people went with the assumption of increased flexibility, even though it’s often not the case.

        Now we’ve got the perception of constant availability too, that might mean people assume communicating isn’t so important. The assumption becomes that the meeting could just happen ‘whenever’ because it’s just on zoom and nobody has to travel or book a meeting room or operate a convoluted teleconferencing system. It’s honestly still rude though.

    2. Peanut Hamper*

      This really leaves me wondering if all of these meetings need to be actual meetings, or could just be an email.

  8. Sloanicota*

    I totally agree that, particularly because it’s volunteers so you have no real accountability over their time, it may be a good idea to switch to something like a shared document / email thread over frequent meetings. I am in two groups that just schedule monthly / weekly meetings as a matter of course. They are both lead by people who are retired. It’s really hard for me to regularly attend these meetings and honestly it’s rarely a great use of my time.

  9. NursingaWound*

    Alison’s point about looking at the necessity of meetings is a good one. In my working life I’d guess about 50% of the meetings I went to could have been handled by an e-mail. When they were in person, that meant trying to play catch up with my desk afterwards. I once missed a routine staff meeting for the closing on my house and my manager was annoyed for years. Yet there was no critical content at the meeting.

    If you reduce the number of meetings and limit them to essential attendees, the problem might evaporate.

    1. Drago Cucina*

      It’s always good to evaluate how meetings are being run. I belong to an organization where our all volunteer board meetings would last three hours. With the rotation of leadership we’re now done in about one hour.

      We did have to enforce our by-laws with a couple of board members. Missing two meetings in a row without an emergency event means they will be replaced. We have every other month meetings.

      1. Elitist Semicolon*

        I used to work for someone who refused to let a meeting come to a natural end if we didn’t use the full time. Her attitude was that it was the only required weekly time we were all together and she’d booked the room for two hours, so dammit, we were going to meet for two hours. LOTS of long, awkward silences when people had run out of things to say but she was still trying to generate discussion. Agonizing, and we were all students so none of us really felt comfortable being all, “dude, can we stop now?”

        1. Drago Cucina*

          That makes me angry on your behalf.

          I have a every other week meeting that I run. People have learned to show up on time. It’s scheduled for an hour, but if we’ve handled all the businesses in 25 minutes–Bye! Have a good day and don’t hesitate to ask a follow-up question. It’s via Teams, so they don’t even have to walk down the hall.

    2. cncx*

      I actually dropped out of a volunteer situation because of how much people wanted to meet instead of email. I had explained with no softening of my language to the leader that I had a grueling work schedule and that any in person meetings were usually taking away from my sleep or ability to do things like laundry so I needed to keep to written comms and especially no voice notes ( which is another story) or “quick chats.”

      The final straw is when she was absolutely insistent that we had to meet in person on a Saturday night when she had a cold and then when I get there, her best friend joined via WhatsApp and speakerphone because she was “tired.” I was tired too!!! And didn’t want whatever germs she had!

  10. LinesInTheSand*

    In general, I get better attendance when I publish an outcome and an agenda in advance. For my colleagues who are meeting-overloaded, it signals that MY meeting will be well-run and with purpose. That helps A LOT.

    For the worst offenders in my life, I do a few things.

    First, I decide personally what my wait policy is. I’ve decided I’ll wait 15 minutes and leave at that point. It puts me back in control of my schedule.

    Second, for people who like to reschedule everything last minute, I send a confirmation a few hours in advance and say something like “I’ll be away from my phone for a few hours right before we meet. I’ll see you at .” This way they know they can’t just reschedule 10 minute in advance.

    Finally, I don’t feel the need to be infinitely flexible and accommodating. I have stuff to do, and I don’t like having my time wasted. If someone keeps no-showing, I stop inviting them.

    1. Elf*

      I agree – I find sending the agenda out the day before a group meeting (which includes the known apologies) is also just a useful reminder that the meeting is happening. Often it will prompt people to either accept the meeting invite, or to let me know if they can’t make it.

    2. Christine*

      Great post. Also, with repeat offenders, I refuse to update them if they are really late, and leave it up to them to get caught up post-meeting. Missing a meeting now and then, or really late once in a while? Totally understandable and forgivable, and I am happy to update them myself after the meeting. But I have had a handful of co-workers who routinely don’t show, but we don’t know how long to wait before starting the meeting because they could show any minute; or, show up 20 minutes late with a doughnut and coffee in hand, and then have the audacity to demand “re-starting” the meeting. Aw HELL naw.

  11. Cat Lady in the Mountains*

    Also – are these 1-1 meetings, or group meetings where one or two people are missing but you still have critical mass?

    If it’s the latter, can you proceed without the missing people and send them notes afterward?

    In those cases, if I have the authority to treat it as “they didn’t go so they relinquished their opportunity for input and I decided what to do for them,” that breaks people of the habit of missing meetings they actually care about real quick. Or sometimes it clarifies that really they don’t need to be in the room after all. Sometimes it works for 1-1’s too – like “I really did need the input on X when we met today, but since you missed the call I’m going to have to proceed doing Y.”

    Use this judiciously of course, and only where your role and the power dynamic/relationship allows for it.

    1. Philosophia*

      That was my question too. A meeting with one or two others where one of them doesn’t show up is a very different situation from a group meeting some people don’t attend but you have a quorum that includes all (or enough of) the necessary attendees.

      1. Climate organizer*

        same three. It is not at all clear to me if they are talking about individual meetings or group meetings?

        I am a volunteer leader of other volunteers. there are a bajillion meetings. I attend bc I enjoy them, but also as an extrovert and a veteran leader of the org, they are interesting to me / I set the agenda so ofc I’m interested. I used to take it personally when people RSVPd but didn’t show up, but I’ve gotten over myself now.

        Frankly for group meetings, I expect 50+% no shows from random new-to-me RSVPs, 50% no shows from ordinary volunteers if I send out a group email, and even a good 30+% of core volunteers if I texted / called / individual email outreach, and they haven’t responded. Personal individual outreach is the only tool I have for reminding others that there’s an actual human at the other end of the calendar invite. Automated reminders are not equivalent to individual human outreach. Automated reminders are from robots and robots don’t care.

        Volunteering at my org comes squarely at #3 for me behind family and work, but others have other priorities, other groups they belong to, hobbies that they love, rest or mental health days, I am not them, they are not me. People are different. It’s my job as a leader of volunteers to make these meetings relevant, useful, interesting, and yes, fun, for them to spend their precious free time with me.

        wrt to Alison’s last suggestion~ I have asked as an ice breaker: why do you come to these meetings, what is in this meeting for you? What do you find valuable about these meetings? Or not? Because it is important that volunteers are getting some value out of the meeting, even (especially?) if it is “I feel like being here let’s me feel like I’m contributing to the cause”. Otherwise volunteers will slowly ghost and fade away, and they won’t tell you why.

        Again, disclaimer that I am assuming we’re primarily talking about group meetings.

    2. Ginger Peachy*

      I used to be the President of a board with one board member who was notorious (from way before I got there) for no-showing. It was assumed she was on the board to pad her resume rather than any real commitment to the cause. At the meetings I ran, tasks were assigned. If you were there, you got to choose the tasks you took on. Whatever was left to do, I assigned to the no-show via email. That only had to happen twice, and miraculously, she was able to attend all the other meetings during my tenure.

    3. LW*

      A little column A, a little column B. Let’s say our service is teapot making, and a volunteer says they want to learn more about and help with teapot design, but then doesn’t show the teapot design meetings where they were supposed to be doing the learning and the helping. Everyone else meets but…they don’t know enough yet to be assigned a meaningful task afterwards and we would have asked someone else be there if we knew they weren’t going to show.

      For 1-1 meetings, an example might be meeting (after a few initial emails) with someone from a different community group that sells teapots that we would benefit from partnering with. It’s hardest when you need something from the person standing you up, but I can try to implement the suggestions from Alison and comments more.

    4. LW*

      A little column A, a little column B. Let’s say our service is teapot making, and a volunteer says they want to learn more about and help with teapot design, but then doesn’t show the teapot design meetings where they were supposed to be doing the learning and the helping. Everyone else meets but…the volunteer doesn’t know enough yet to be assigned a meaningful task afterwards and we would have asked someone else be there if we knew they weren’t going to show.

      For 1-1 meetings, an example might be meeting (after a few initial emails) with someone from a different community group that sells teapots that we would benefit from partnering with.

      It’s harder when you actually need something from the person not showing, but I can definitely try to implement the suggestions from Alison and comments more!

      1. LW*

        sorry for the commenting fail, that kept reappearing as a draft waiting to be submitted. maybe that happens if you hit the back button.

  12. I went to school with only 1 Jennifer*

    LW, you say “I’m a volunteer myself and don’t have the time or bandwidth to wait around and chase after people.” Do you mean that you volunteer as board president for this small grassroots not-for-profit? It’s unclear to me.

    1. different seudonym*

      Board positions for nonprofits are to my understanding usually volunteer positions.

      1. Judge Judy and Executioner*

        Agree. My partner and I have been on non-profit boards and earned zero money. I highly doubt that a small grassroots nonprofit is paying board members. Sometimes, board members get perks like occasional event food or free membership dues, but that’s about it.

    2. Sparrow*

      That is usually how nonprofit boards work, in my experience! Pretty much all the ones I’ve seen are staffed with volunteers.

    3. LW*

      These replies are correct! Have a separate regular job, this is all happening in the context of a volunteer position.

  13. Retired Camp Counselor*

    This may not solve the underlying issue or be the issue causing this, but I’ve found that I’m SO used to work meetings always coming with calendar invites, that I’m much more guilty of missing/forgetting about meetings for boards I’m part of, etc. when I have to manually remember to go in, make a calendar appointment, etc.
    Meetings that I’m invited to that include calendar invites then make it so much easier to find the Zoom link, the agenda, etc.

    1. Guacamole Bob*

      +1

      I am quite reliable for work meetings, but I have an evening volunteer committee meeting that I’ve been late to multiple times because I don’t have anything that pops up on a screen in front of me (whoops). It’s because it’s a time of day when I’m usually not in front of a screen. That’s on me, but sending calendar invitations might help some folks some of the time.

      1. TeaCoziesRUs*

        One of my ADHD tools is looking over my schedule 2-3 days in advance and setting multiple alarms. For instance, if I have an in-person meeting, I’ll have one go off 30 minutes before I need to leave as a heads up, then another 10 minutes before I need to be in the car that I can snooze twice and still hit the road on time.

        Online? 30 minute heads up. 10 minutes to get the computer booted up, email open, etc etc etc.

        My alarms have a title section, so I can write Dr Appt – location or whatever in the alarm itself.

  14. ML*

    I give people about five minutes and then I text or email them immediately and ask if it’s still a good time. Most of the time, they’ve missed a reminder, are having technology trouble or something else ran long. Occasionally we will end up rescheduling, but usually we are able to get the meeting done, albeit a few minutes late.

    With so many outside stakeholders, though, I wonder if it would be easier to try scheduling these at the same day/time, like the first Tuesday of the month at 1 pm or something. If these volunteers and board members have other jobs and obligations, it may help them to schedule other things around a standing meeting with LW’s group.

  15. Higher-ed Jessica*

    I liked most of Alison’s advice but I definitely would not do this: “Does 3:00 today still work for you?” I feel like there’s already a cultural trend toward treating everything as tentative no matter how planned it is, and expecting last-minute confirmations (though that may be more prevalent in social life).

    But if this meeting has been on the calendar for three weeks and I’ve already scheduled the rest of my life around it and spent time planning for it and I am expecting you to show up so we can Get Stuff Done, the reminder definitely will not be any namby-pamby “does 3pm today still work for you?” because phrasing it as a y/n question implies it’s okay to say no, and it is NOT okay! Sure, bailing on our 3pm meeting when you get the 9am reminder is better than no-showing, but it’s still not an acceptable way to be unless there’s a compelling reason.

    I like the idea of sending a reminder (yeah, in theory you shouldn’t have to, but if meeting people halfway will help solve the problem, I would do it), but my reminder would say something more like “Just wanted to confirm our call for this afternoon. I’m looking forward to discussing new llama styling trends. See you at 3!” Like, here’s a courtesy reminder to make sure you haven’t forgotten, and to assure you I haven’t forgotten, but I’m ASSUMING you’re going to make it. It’s not a question at this point.

    1. Beth*

      I see how “Does 3:00 still work for you?” reads as “this was scheduled but it’s actually tentative,” but I don’t think that’s true! I think it’s one of those messages that carries some read-between-the-lines weight.

      I read it as “I’m concerned you’ll flake on me, please confirm you’re taking our scheduled plans seriously?” Sure, the recipient could reply with “Oh I forgot, can we reschedule?” but honestly I’d be embarrassed to. And if I’d already established a pattern of last-minute canceling, I’d should hear it as a sign that I’m pushing the limits of my friend/coworker’s patience and need to shape up, or they might stop inviting me to things/accepting my invitations/giving me work/etc.

      1. Sparrow*

        Yeah, I agree with this! I think that reading “Does 3:00 still work for you?” as “This was tentative and could still be rescheduled” is a bit like assuming that someone starting a business meeting with “How are you?” means they want a full account of your marital issues, work problems, and recent stomachache—it’s taking a very literal meaning of something that’s not really intended to be so literal.

    2. Elsa*

      I also don’t like asking if a time still works. If I have a meeting scheduled for 3 pm, I’ve probably planned other things around it, and if they say “no, actually let’s meet at four”, that will mess up my afternoon or send us into an endless ping pong of rescheduling. I don’t want to make it easy for them to get out of keeping to what we planned.

      I’m also much more aggressive with no- shows. Three minutes after the scheduled meeting time I send a message: “Hi, I’m waiting in zoom for the meeting we scheduled for 3 pm, are you joining?” and add in the zoom link (even though it’s also on the calendar invite). And then if they are still not there 15 minutes after the scheduled time, “I waited 15 minutes so now I’m logging off, hope everything is ok.” I like them to know they wasted my time.

  16. BigLawEx*

    I’ve found that confirming the night before/morning of really helps. (I hate typed one last night for a meeting at 10 AM today.)

    Personally, I hate doing this because I’m the person who shows up 99% of the time. But living in LA for years has taught me that confirmation can virtually eliminate this—not the flakiness, but wasting your time. If people don’t confirm, I assume a no-show. If people confirm, I know they’re coming. Also, if you don’t think it inappropriate, I get mobile numbers with calendar invites and text any no shows immediately at 10:01 for example. I find out pretty quickly whether they’re just late or not, and immediately reschedule right then. (I have a Google Voice number I use for some people who I wouldn’t share my real number with.)

  17. 2 Cents*

    OP, to echo Alison’s point and so many other commenters, you’re being WAY too accommodating. You’re making these meetings seem optional with your current wording. If it’s truly an emergency, someone will let you know (maybe after the fact), but that shouldn’t be your default for every one of these things.

  18. Guacamole Bob*

    I totally agree with Alison about sending out confirmations in advance. I was an admin for a very busy nonprofit executive director who had a ton of meetings with various community and board members. After a couple of mix-ups and no-shows I got in the habit of sending confirmations a day or two prior. 90% of the time I got no response or just a confirmation back, but often enough I got something back about rescheduling, or oops I thought you meant the coffee shop on Main Street and not the one on Elm Street, or did we say 1 p.m. because I have it down as 12:30. It really cut down on issues.

    Those were almost all in person, but emailing the same day to confirm/remind, add an agenda if needed, provide the link, etc. may have a similar impact for virtual meetings.

  19. Aggretsuko*

    I have this issue all the time and frankly, I’m just asking the person on the day of the meeting, (she’s canceled 5 out of 6 times so far) at least poking her with a stick to see if she can make it that day.

  20. Herding cats I mean volunteers*

    Just have to jump in here to say in that my many years of experience working with volunteers, you usually HAVE to have regular meetings with them to ensure that they do anything they promised to do. Obviously it varies by person but “this meeting coulda been an email” isn’t true if “you don’t do s*** if we communicate only over email.”

    1. anona*

      Yikes, with an attitude like that, I can’t say I’m surprised they’re not that eager to be involved.

    2. Hyaline*

      Just have to jump in here to say this is absolutely not my experience at all…and if volunteers aren’t doing what they promise without meetings, it’s entirely possible they aren’t doing what they promised WITH meetings, either.

    3. Annie2*

      Eh, this is my experience too and I don’t think it’s as ‘negative’ as it reads. I’m on the board of a non-profit and we’re all extremely part time. Our monthly meetings end up acting as a sort of deadline enforcer – it’s easy to let a task slip until you have to admit out loud to everyone at the meeting that you never sent that email you promised to send.

      1. Sparrow*

        I also had a pretty negative reaction to this, and I am also someone who’s worked with volunteers for much of my career. I do agree that it can be tricky to get some volunteers in some situations to do what they promised to do… but I also think that the sentence “you don’t do shit” is so inherently confrontational and accusing that it’s hard to read it as anything but negative.

      2. Cazaril*

        I ran a committee of busy people for a nonprofit organization that was responsible for material with hard deadlines. I was careful to record action items at each monthly meeting. Then, as I was creating the agenda for the next meeting I would send out the previous month’s action items so that people could respond whether they had done them. This served as a great reminder for all of us, and for the actions that were taken care of they would be noted on the agenda and not have to be dealt with in the meeting unless a follow-up was needed. This saved meeting time while insuring that things didn’t get forgotten.

  21. Anon for This*

    This just happened to me recently with one of my employees. Except that it wasn’t my meeting. It was with higher-ups. (I wasn’t assigned to be there; he was to represent our group.) I’m trying to figure out how to modify these scripts for this scenario. It was on a remote work day (we’re hybrid), which may have had something to do with it. Also, it was his first meeting of this type. We’d never asked this of him before, and I don’t know what to do with him if I can’t ask him again.

  22. Hyaline*

    An observation: The letter says that this happens frequently, but it doesn’t say if it happens frequently *with the same people* or if, between all these meetings with all these different people, you lose missed meeting roulette on what feels like a frequent basis. And…what is “frequent” to you? It’s absolutely irritating and frustrating no matter what, and in addition IMO rude when people don’t apologize, but if you have a couple dozen meetings a week with different people, and one or two get missed…that isn’t *great* but it’s also not stop-the-presses frequent. It would certainly feel that way to you because it’s happening to you…but if it’s different people every time, it’s also not really a pattern.

    All that to say–it might be worth asking around with colleagues and/or peers to see if your expectations are on point here or if you’re getting irritated over something that others would view as “annoying but normal.” Absolutely employ the strategies advised here, but maybe also do a check-in with yourself about your reaction. Sometimes the best way to stop being irritated about something is to adjust our own expectations rather than trying to train others’ behaviors.

    1. LW*

      I think you identified the issue. There have been a couple of repeat offenders, and I address that in whatever way is appropriate for the type of role. But there are enough one-off meetings to, say, meet a potential community partner, orient a new board member, or have a check in with a key stakeholder, that if every one person had one lapse then it’s an anomaly for them but the norm on my end. But either way you’re right, I can adjust my thinking and reaction!

  23. EA*

    For Board members and volunteers specifically: These are usually busy people! Making sure the meetings are at good times for them helps so much, and make the meetings worth it. If it can be an email or text, do that instead. I agree with the suggestion to send reminders, as well as:
    1. Schedule better. Send doodle polls, verify if they are actually available.
    2. Make it easy to join. Send the invitations with Zoom links and agendas in them to both their personal and professional emails (if they agree). All they need to do is click and join with all the info right there.

  24. Another Kristin*

    Standing/routine meeting with a more or less equal peer:

    “Hey [name], I didn’t see you at [routine meeting] the other day – can you fill me in on [thing they would have discussed]? Just so you know, [thing that arose from the meeting that they would be interested in]. Talk soon”

    With a higher-up/someone who you asked for the meeting:

    “Hi [name], I’m sorry we couldn’t connect today! Let me know when would be a good time to reschedule.” [polite salutation and signature]

    Someone who asked YOU for the meeting and didn’t show up: I would do nothing, unless I was really intrigued by whatever they were asking to meet about or thought it was very important. If they want to reschedule, they can reach out to me.

    It’s annoying when people waste your time, but stuff does happen and if you have a lot of meetings, you’re bound to be ghosted every now and then. I try not to take it personally.

  25. powerline*

    I work in a job where I schedule lots of types of meetings for lots of types of people, and one of the most frustrating parts is managing calendars. When you’re working with a variety of people, they all use a variety of calendar programs, and it’s quite often a technical issue that the meeting just didn’t make it into someone’s calendar for one reason or another. We mostly use Apple and Google calendars, and we’ve figured out how to make those two play together decently well, but for example Microsoft does some kind of weird dark magic that makes it almost impossible for Outlook users to properly subscribe to our calendars. Some people prefer to spend time managing their own calendars manually, some prefer an attached ICS file, some want to be individually sent an invitation through the calendar program, some have an assistant who you have to invite so their boss will show up …. etc etc etc.

    If I were you I’d spend some time digging in to why people are missing meetings; is there something about the way you’re currently setting them up that makes it technically difficult for folks on certain programs to calendar them? Could you be sending reminders at a different frequency? If your staff are using the same calendar program you are, are they using it *in the same way* you are? Can you offer a calendaring refresher training for staff?

    Calendaring is complicated and it’s usually a big part of an admin job! If you don’t have the bandwidth for all this detail work yourself, pull in some help from someone on your staff. A good admin can make sure your meetings actually get on peoples’ calendars, take care of sending regular reminders, and coordinate with others’ assistants if necessary to ensure that everything runs smoothly.

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