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Transform Your Conference Rooms with Enterprise Meeting Management Software for 220M Meetings Monthly

HomeResourcesBlogTransform Your Conference Rooms with Enterprise Meeting Management Software for 220M Meetings Monthly
meeting management software

Every month in the US alone, we hold 220 million meetings – at an average salary cost per meeting of $340.

With a third of employees saying their time in meetings is thrown away, the cost of badly-run meetings certainly can be a drain on any business.

Good meetings, though, are the glue that binds an organization together, creating collaboration, team spirit and real innovation.

So what can you do to improve your conference rooms?

How can you make sure you get the worker buy-in you need to squeeze the juice out of every meeting minute?

Employees say the things that annoy them most about badly-organized meetings are:

  • no-shows
  • equipment failures
  • wasted time just hanging around.

Sound familiar? I’m sure we’ve all suffered these three bugbears at some time.

They’re a problem for small operations – but when you get up to enterprise level, where there could be hundreds of conference rooms across many different locations, they multiply into a real issue.

It’s almost an unseen cost. As Training Journal pointed out recently:

The same individual who would need to get approval from three managers for their $200 flight can happily spend $40,000 per year of their time in meetings.”

Truth is, the problems underlying bad meetings can be eliminated easily if you have the right kind of workplace technology with enterprise meeting management software at your fingertips.

So ask your employees these 9 questions about their meetings:

  1. Can you quickly find and book the perfect space for your meeting?
  2. Do your meetings automatically appear in Outlook?
  3. Have you ever booked a conference room at an external venue because you can’t find a meeting space in your own offices?
  4. Are conferences in multiple locations or time zones tricky to organize?
  5. Have you ever decided not to hold a video conference? If so, why?
  6. Have you ever missed a meeting because the time or venue changed?
  7. Do you ever see meeting rooms standing empty?
  8. Have you ever had a meeting delayed because the room lacked vital equipment?
  9. Do you find it a problem to order catering for your meeting?

If you are worried by their answers, you need to take decisive action – here are my suggestions.

  1. Can you quickly find and book the perfect space for your meeting?

If many of your employee’s workers say no, this is a biggie. To cater for modern working practices, your workplace needs flexible space with facilities for formal and informal meetings.

It also needs to provide facilities such as hot desks for remote employees who work out of the office at least some of the time.

If your employees cannot find the right space to get on with their job, their productivity takes a hit – and their wellbeing suffers, too. It’s no great recipe for talent retention or success.

This situation can be resolved by enterprise-level meeting booking software. Employees can self-serve by using the room and desk scheduling system to easily locate and book workspace online or via an app, even before they arrive at the office – no need to use up valuable time by calling an administrator.

  1. Do your meetings automatically appear in Outlook?

When choosing meeting booking software at enterprise level, it’s important to select a system that integrates with Outlook to simplify the booking process with its familiar user experience – watch this video.

With Outlook integration you can easily book rooms, manage individual calendars, send out agendas, book catering, schedule a video conference and manage audiovisual – all from the Outlook desktop.

  1. Have you ever booked space at an external venue because you can’t find a meeting space in your own offices?

Busy people take the simplest route, and if they can’t find an internal conference room quickly, they will book an external space. Across an enterprise, this can add up to a huge cost – particularly internal space was actually available.

  1. Are conferences in multiple locations or time zones tricky to organize?

Yes – if you need to call admin staff and attendees in many locations as well as finding somewhere for them to join the meeting.

Meeting booking software helps you book the right space in each location, along with AV and VC if they are needed for the meeting.

And here’s the best bit – if the meeting changes, the system automatically informs all attendees. For instance, if your Chicago group gets bigger and needs to move to a larger room, it’s a simple drag-and-drop task.

  1. Have you ever decided not to hold a video conference? If so, why?

Logistical difficulties in organizing meetings across locations can be a real drag on employee uptake when it comes to video conferencing.

It’s worth making it simple with the help of enterprise meeting management software – VC saves time and travel, and also reduces workplace stress.

  1. Have you ever missed a meeting because the time or venue changed?

Sure you have – who hasn’t?

Making sure everyone has automatic updates about the meeting can solve this issue – and if the enterprise meeting management software integrates closely with digital signage, it can help attendees (even visitors) to locate the meeting even if they are unfamiliar with the building.

  1. Do you ever see meeting rooms standing empty?

Office floor space is costing more all the time – your business can’t afford to have space standing empty.

A meeting scheduling system that integrates with room sensors can monitors attendance, and if a booked room or desk is not occupied, it releases it to be booked by someone else.

  1. Have you ever had a meeting delayed because the room lacked vital equipment?

This is a real drag on productivity. Remember how much meeting costs in salaries? Imagine how much even a 10-minute delay costs your business.

Your enterprise meeting management software will keep a real-time inventory of resources including AV, video conferencing and projectors, so your employees can reserve what need for their meeting in a single transaction.

  1.  Do you find it a problem to order catering for your meeting?

Just about everyone finds this an extra nuisance, but meetings need fuel. That’s why catering software should always be integrated with your meeting booking system so your employees can book refreshments at the same time as booking the room.

Integration with the meeting booking software means the caterers are automatically informed about meeting changes at the same time as everyone else.

I’d say there’s one more question, this time to ask yourself.

Is it investing in the tools to make my meetings more efficient?

Take a look at your office and your people. See how many meetings are going on – and consider what would happen if they were even more engaging.

Then add in all the time you’ll save, and factor in the benefit of keeping your talented workers happy. Suddenly, it’s not difficult to identify the ROI, is it?

Make my workers happier in their meetings – show me how it works.