Collaboration is an integral part of business operations, and with it comes the need to set up and attend meetings on a regular basis. In fact, the average employee, regardless of rank and company size, attends an average of eight(!) meetings per week.
Given the sheer number of meetings that take place in any organization, proper management of available meeting rooms is a must. With only a finite number of meeting rooms available, it’s important for companies to have an efficient meeting room management system in place to avoid wasted time slots, overbookings, and other frustrating challenges.
This is why a growing number of companies are deciding to use a meeting room booking manager in their office spaces. These powerful tools make booking meeting rooms a breeze and address common reservation challenges.
Overcome These Common Challenges with a Meeting Room Manager
- Booking confusion when the receptionist is on leave
Many organizations place their receptionists in charge of meeting room reservations. Unfortunately, this may lead to confusion on days when the usual receptionist is on leave and the substitute does not know the routines. As a result, double bookings and other issues tend to arise.
- Room reservation favoritism
Another challenge that can be avoided by giving employees direct access to room reservations is reservation favoritism. Although it’s widely recognized as poor professional practice, favoritism when it comes to room reservations does exist. Especially when there's only one person in charge of managing bookings. By extending that power and responsibility to your entire organization, the common “first come, first served” rule is better enforced.
- Booking rooms without the right equipment
It can be frustrating to spend an entire week working on a slideshow presentation, only to find that the meeting room you’ve booked doesn’t have a projector. Thankfully, most modern meeting room management apps allow users to see a complete list of all the equipment available in any given room with a single tap. Similarly, these comprehensive systems can also show other important details, such as maximum seating capacity. With these neat features, you can always ensure that the rooms you book meet your specific needs.
- Emergency or short-notice meetings
Short-notice or emergency meetings are a common occurrence, especially in companies that belong to fast-paced industries. These situations call for quickly booking an available meeting room. Fortunately, through a comprehensive meeting room management system, employees can see and reserve available meeting rooms on the fly, whether they are in the office or out on the field.
- Meetings that go longer than expected
Experts from the Harvard Business Review claim that it’s best to keep meetings between 15 to 20 minutes or less to avoid attention lag. However, some meetings just always seem to extend well past the time slot reserved. When this happens, the people involved cannot just put ongoing discussions on hold to inform the receptionist that they’ll be extending.
This is a very common problem, which is why the most popular room reservation systems have a feature for instantly extending a room booking. Similarly, these systems also allow employees to free up the room instantly if a meeting ends early.
Overall, a meeting room manager is definitely a must-have for businesses that want to raise employee productivity before and during meetings. If you have yet to implement this technology in your workplace, we have long experience in the field and are happy to help you!
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