How and why optimize the planning of meeting rooms?

Face-to-face meetings are one of the advantages of working in the office, rather than working from home and meeting remotely. But managing them is sometimes quite difficult and can causeorganizational problems. This raises the question of the priority to be given to the meeting room management system. Or the availability of tools to manage the scheduling of meeting rooms.

Before we begin, it's worth noting that the two main goals of improving your meeting room management processes are to increase utilization and improve the employee experience. 

We all have bad memories of walking around the office trying to find a meeting room or a place to take our call. It's one of the most stressful experiences in the office. Let's take a look at how we can reduce this frustration and increase the use of space for good.

How and why optimize the planning of meeting rooms?

Meeting room management is critical to the smooth operation of the workplace. It ensures that all teams have access to a space when needed and eliminates unnecessary conflict situations. There are other benefits to having a meeting space management system:   

Avoid double bookings

A proper meeting room management system will automatically prevent users from booking a space where meetings are already being held. This eliminates any conflict between employees and provides a clear picture of space occupancy and scheduling for each meeting room.

Better use of space

Effective space management software shows how often a specific room is used. This real-time data gives a complete perspective of the meeting room's usage and allows for optimization, if necessary. 

Increase the availability of rooms

Without convenient booking tools, it's difficult to keep track of conference room schedules. Integrate a room reservation system to avoid double booking and situations where reserved meeting space is left unattended. 

The implementation of a meeting room reservation tool

When it comes to managing workplaces, a good booking tool is essential to ensure smooth and stable operations. Implementing such a system saves your employees time in finding a suitable meeting room. 

There's no need to scour the various spaces for an available space or constantly ask department heads for help. With the room reservation system, every team member can find a meeting space easily with a few clicks. 

Track space occupancy

One of the most useful features of the reservation system is to see the occupancy level of each meeting room. This helps answer some key questions:

• Does the office have enough space for meetings?
• What are the most popular spaces?
• How often do people use conference rooms?

By knowing this data, you can optimize these spaces and work on underutilized ones to create an efficient workplace for the team. 

A good understanding of occupancy rates helps prevent conflicts between employees and avoid double-booking. 

Name your meeting rooms to facilitate their location

Naming your conference rooms may seem like an unnecessary measure for your workplace. But that's only the case at first glance. 

The names of your meeting rooms allow managers and employees to quickly locate them. This is one of the easiest ways to manage meeting rooms. 

In addition, unique names eliminate confusion. If you have many venues named only by number, it will be more difficult to orient yourself and remember their location. 

Use digital screens outside the conference rooms

Digital displays outside each meeting room take your workplace to the next level. By setting them up, you instantly get a lot of useful features to know who is in the room, how long the meeting will last, but also to book the room directly from the screen.

Integrate a stricter reservation policy

In addition to mandatory registrations, there are many other policies you can incorporate to streamline meeting room management processes. For example, you might consider the following

• Can people make recurring reservations? Maybe for certain rooms, like the daily scrum.
• How far in advance should people book rooms, by type or purpose? You may not want your key meeting rooms to be booked at the last minute.
• Do you have meeting rooms that need to be approved by a manager?
• Do you want to prevent back-to-back bookings?