Scheduling meetings in this day and age should be a straightforward, routine task. It should be, but unfortunately that’s not always the case. Without an efficient booking process, it can easily become a complicated, time and nerve consuming activity that can hamper an organization’s workflow or even reputation. Let’s elaborate.
Technology coupled with the demands of an increasingly mobile corporate society has revolutionized the way we work.
Market trends are forcing big and small organizations to adopt new methods of organizing meetings. With the sheer amount effort required to organize meetings, scheduling errors, the inefficient use of time, meeting spaces and resources can damage employee morale and client expectations. This is where technology steps in.
Time’s a-wastin’
Flexibility has undoubtedly become the most vital element of today’s business environment. Manual processes for arranging meetings, such as phone calls, emails, and paper-based booking methods, are a major killer of time. This back-and-forth style of communication also makes it impossible for attendees to get a proper overview of booked meetings and available meeting rooms.
Conference room digital signage allows any employee in an organization to simply walk up to a room and book it or do so via their computer. Hence, room availability becomes transparent. This eliminates double bookings and the headless hunting down of free rooms. Meetings can therefore be booked remotely or on-site in the blink of an eye and time spent on more important matters.
Oops, my bad…
The ‘old-fashioned way’ of booking rooms, inviting attendees and registering visitors is an error prone process. As the information regarding the availability and capacity of a room isn’t always accurate or cannot be easily accessed easily, scheduling errors occur frequently and take a toll on everyone involved.
Moreover, alterations and cancellations aren’t communicated immediately to attendees, which results in the latter showing up to cancelled meetings, or equipment being delivered at the wrong time and to the wrong conference room. What a nuisance!
With a room booking device on the door all this can be avoided. A notification pops up on the screen, notifying colleagues about when and for how long a meeting is going to take place. Emails are sent out to visitors with all the necessary information about the meeting. No embarrassing mix-ups, no drama.
Interruptions, frayed nerves, and inefficient use of resources
Statistics show that 33% of meetings are unplanned and 20% of booked meeting rooms remain unused at any given time. A very bad combo. Without a cohesive scheduling system, meeting organizers end up relying on their own memory to keep track of what’s going on. This not only leads to mistakes, it also creates frustration among employees and visitors alike.
People end up getting lost down corridors, knocking on random offices for directions, bursting into ongoing meetings, etc., leaving potential clients with a poor impression of the company and employees in a constant state of annoyance.
In addition to the chaos, meeting spaces are valuable resources and the inability to monitor room usage leads to inefficiency and high electric bills. For example, an empty conference room could be heated or cooled for no reason, or meetings for six people being hosted in rooms with a capacity for twenty. A waste of space and energy.
Again, a meeting room management system helps optimize resources, which lowers costs and provides visitors and staff with a hassle-free experience of the organization.
To recap: it saves time, energy, money and nerves. There simply is no better way to stay efficient and organized. A final tip would therefore be to put the purchasing of a scheduling system on your agenda as soon as possible!