Is the right workplace management software the key to successful collaboration?
Meetings have always been crucial in any collaborative workplace. However, in recent years, the rise of hybrid and remote work has made conferencing even more crucial, with up to 83% of employees spending around a third of their week in meetings.
Unfortunately, while meetings are often crucial for all employees, businesses are limited in their resources. Only a certain number of meeting room spaces and solutions are available in any environment, and they need to be distributed fairly across all teams.
That’s where meeting room management technology comes in. It ensures companies can maintain a holistic view of their assets, devices, rooms, and spaces and use their resources effectively.
What is Workplace Management Software?
Workplace management software (MRMS), sometimes called a “meeting room booking system,” is a software solution that helps companies efficiently utilize meeting rooms. It streamlines room scheduling, reservation, and management, allowing teams to find available meeting rooms, book conferencing sessions rapidly, and even configure devices based on their needs.
Workplace management software can also provide access to tools that allow businesses to monitor the health of their devices, apply updates remotely, and track usage metrics.
These tools can work alongside unified communications and collaboration software, as well as various forms of hardware, such as meeting room screens and displays.
There are various examples of excellent meeting room management solutions available today. For instance, AppSpace’s management software makes scheduling conferences, tracking reservations, and leveraging space utilization insights easy. There are also various powerful options available from brands like Atlona, Deskbird, DTEN, Eden, Humly, Kadence, and Officely.
Features of Workplace Management Software
The features of a meeting room management or booking system can vary depending on the vendor you choose. Some include solutions specifically designed for guest management, while others include AI-powered features that can help you maximize your scheduling strategy.
The most common features include:
- Room reservation: Tools allow users to check the availability of meeting rooms, view details on room capacity, amenities, and equipment, and reserve rooms for a specific time.
- Scheduling and calendar integration: Most workplace management software will integrate with existing calendars and update them automatically with meeting schedules.
- Insights and analytics: The best software should provide real-time insights into room availability and usage and send alerts for upcoming meetings, changes, and cancellations.
- Resource optimization: Insights offered by workplace management software can help companies identify peak usage times and underutilized rooms. They can also help optimize meeting room booking based on demand.
- Office management: Many solutions integrate with other tools, such as visitor and guest management systems and building access control technology.
- Room Configuration: Usually, these tools allow you to configure devices and rooms remotely, apply updates to hardware, and implement secure access controls.
Why Do Companies Need Meeting Room Managers?
In today’s hybrid workplace, it’s easy for confusion to arise among employees about which resources they can access at any given time. Business leaders need to ensure they have a clear view of which employees will be on-site at any given time and which spaces they’ll be using.
Workplace management software technology ensures companies can avoid common challenges and issues, such as:
- Room underutilization and overutilization: With insights into resource utilization, companies can more easily distribute teams between different spaces and ensure they’re getting the most value out of their investments.
- Meeting disruptions: Meeting room systems can help to reduce disruptions by eliminating the risk of double-booking and ensuring employees are notified of impending meetings. They can reduce no-shows and improve the flow of work.
- Technology issues: With access to tools that allow them to configure, update, and manage meeting rooms remotely, business leaders can bypass various technology issues. They can even access real-time alerts when potential errors arise.
- Security concerns: Meeting room management solutions can help businesses control who has access to specific resources and tools in a meeting environment. They can also ensure everyone follows the same meeting room usage policies, reducing non-compliance.
Benefits of Workplace Management Software
Aside from helping companies avoid the challenges mentioned above, workplace management software can deliver various additional benefits.
With the right technology, companies can:
Reduce Costs and Improve ROI
Inefficient meeting room management leads to serious financial repercussions for teams. Simply wasting time communicating about changing meeting details prevents employees from focusing their attention on valuable processes and tasks.
Workplace management software can help to eliminate these inefficiencies, leading to a more productive and profitable workplace. Moreover, with insights into room utilization, business leaders can make more intelligent decisions about workplace scheduling and future investments.
They can ensure that teams have access to the meeting spaces they need when they need them most and improve resource allocation strategies, reducing costs.
Strengthen Productivity and Collaboration
One study found that 40% of in-office employees waste as much as 30 minutes each day just looking for a suitable meeting space. Meeting room management technology ensures employees can access streamlined and intuitive booking tools that allow them to schedule meetings instantly.
With the right tools, staff members can instantly see which meeting rooms are available at any given time, which resources they include, and even which other team members will be available in the office. Plus, they allow companies to implement clear standards and procedural guidelines for using meeting rooms.
This reduces the risk of employees spending more time than necessary in a meeting room and improves the likelihood of more efficient sessions.
Access Valuable Insights
The analytical and reporting solutions built into workplace management software give companies valuable insights they can use for various purposes. We’ve already mentioned how these tools can help companies make better decisions about resource allocation and future investments.
However, they can also help business leaders understand how employees use their meeting rooms and uncover ways of making spaces more productive and efficient. Some solutions even include access to intelligent monitoring tools that can help companies improve the health and safety of their meeting spaces. They can track environmental conditions like occupancy levels and temperature.
Moreover, they ensure business leaders can maintain real-time visibility into the health of their meeting rooms and devices to minimize the risk of technical issues.
Improve Experiences
Finally, meeting room management solutions can improve experiences in an office environment in various ways. An intuitive system can help employees coordinate more effectively, ensuring they can see who is available in an office at any time and what each meeting space can offer so that they can make the right scheduling decisions.
The right tools can even assist employees in the hybrid workplace in deciding which days they should visit the office, and when to work from home, based on available resources.
Some solutions can even improve the experiences companies deliver to guests and visitors, ensuring organizations can rapidly give visitors access to the space and technology they need as soon as they arrive.
What to Look for in Workplace Management Software
While there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy for choosing workplace management software, there are a few key components companies should consider, such as:
Crucial Workplace Management Software Features
Depending on how you’ll be using your meeting rooms and conference spaces, the features most crucial to your platform can vary. All workplace management software should have access to room availability, scheduling tools, and reservation management options.
However, you may also need to look into solutions that allow you to set up custom room permissions for different users, implement secure access controls, or configure devices remotely. You may also need access to visitor and guest management software.
Integrations with Critical Tools
Like most technologies in the modern workplace, workplace management software work best when they can connect with your existing tools and resources. Your solution should integrate seamlessly with popular collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams or Zoom.
It also needs to work alongside your enterprise resource management apps, your scheduling and workforce management software, and your internal calendar tools. The more flexible your technology is, the easier it will be to create a streamlined environment for workplace management.
Ease of Use
Simplicity is vital when implementing any new technology. Your workplace management software will only deliver positive results if anyone in your team can use it. Make sure you search for a solution with an intuitive, user-friendly design.
Make it easy to access your solution from various platforms, including mobile devices, and consider implementing features that improve the user experience, such as search tools with space filters, to help staff rapidly find the ideal room. Interactive maps can help employees prepare more effectively a meeting too, and notifications and reminders can ensure they don’t forget about a booking.
Valuable Insights
Finally, valuable insights are a must for workplace management software. Ensure there’s a centralized environment where you can track real-time information about a room’s availability status, pre-set bookings, and other necessary details. Look for a tool that also offers historical reporting capabilities to monitor utilization trends over time.
Intelligent reporting and analytics tools can help you identify popular time slots, underutilized spaces, and opportunities to improve productivity with new devices and resources.
Manage Your Meeting Rooms with Ease
Making the most of your meeting rooms is crucial in today’s workplace. But in the world of hybrid work, keeping track of all your resources and ensuring they’re utilized correctly can be difficult. Workplace management software ensures you can get the best return on your investment.
With intuitive tools for meeting room booking, scheduling, and management, you can build a workplace where collaboration and productivity thrive.
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