Despite the slickness of new communications and collaboration technologies, people still feel the need to be get together when learning, sharing and making decisions. Reports of the death of business meetings have been exaggerated.
There are plenty of ways to make meetings overall more efficient. Only last month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk instructed employees to literally walk out of any that fail to meet a useful purpose. Browse Amazon and you’ll find a library of self-help books for developing effective meeting agendas, getting your way in boardroom battles, and generally using the available time more productively.
But none of this advice addresses the key logistical annoyances that we all experience with meetings. Namely, getting them organised with an appropriate meeting room, the relevant equipment set up, and everyone present to start on time.
Top meeting room snafus
Who hasn’t encountered one of the following in the last 10 meetings they’ve attended:
- Having to kick someone else out of the meeting space you’ve booked?
- Being kicked out by someone else?
- Starting your meeting late because at least one participant couldn’t find the room?
- Using a meeting space that isn’t an appropriate size for the number of people attending?
- Finding that the required AV kit, whiteboard, communications equipment etc., isn’t available in the space you’ve booked?
- Complications with getting access to the room?
The raw data
A recent study of UK office workers, commissioned by RedstoneConnect, reveals just how much inefficiency and frustration is involved in the simple act of finding and booking an available meeting space:
- 94% of respondents said finding and booking meeting rooms is difficult or very difficult
- 71% reported having to kick colleagues out of meeting rooms because of overruns and clashes at least three times a week!
- 79% burn more than one working day per year dealing with problems around meeting room scheduling.
- One third lose more than three working days per year – around 30 minutes per week
These frequent gripes can encourage people to book-out meeting spaces on a “just in case” basis, creating the illusion that there aren’t enough meeting rooms to go around. That can be a pretty expensive mistake.