If you have ever worked in a corporate office, you may well flinch at the word “meeting”. Even though meetings should be excellent opportunities for decision making processes, productive discussions, and key information exchange within businesses, they often fall short of such goals and ideals. Everyone has heard the phrase ‘time is money’, and if so, meetings are predominantly costing businesses a lot of money and not contributing enough in turn. One could argue that the issue lies fundamentally in the area of employee motivation and organization, and if so, what can be done to rectify this?

One has to start with the basics or groundwork when approaching a problem of this scale: how the meetings are organised to begin with. Scheduling conflicts, over-utilized rooms, poor availability, and missing invites are all common issues that arise in relation to meeting room booking. Businesses need a system, or meeting room manager, to approach and solve these issues rather than delegating the entire task to an individual. There is a so-called domino effect that must be addressed in relation to meeting rooms. For example, when one meeting surpasses its scheduled time spans, this will affect the nature and success of other meetings (especially when there are limited rooms available).

The Danish company Add-On offers a software product called Resource Central which can act as the meeting room manager. It is designed for Microsoft Outlook and allows employees within a business to invite meeting attendees, check room availability, book the rooms, label the meeting types with Meeting Labels, and order catering and services. 

The software can be accessed from various devices by any employee that has been granted access to the system. It is a scalable and secure option that many businesses could greatly benefit from. Users can, in fact, select ideal meeting spaces via a filtered search option. Users of Resource Central will get real-time synchronization, so room availability is absolutely clear, and customization tools to personalise the interface. We know that 21st century businesses have to operate with a mindset open to and prepared for technological advancements. Flexible options are becoming the standard, rather than the most high-end solutions, and easy-to-use interfaces like Resource Central will likely continue to come out on top.

Meetings can more easily evolve into the hubs of innovation they should be when they are being organised effectively and without unnecessary hassle. Collaboration is a necessity for running a profitable business, and it is easy to recognise that effective scheduling is as well. Employees should be motivated to work hard within the business: when a meeting starts off on the right foot, it is more likely to succeed. If the meeting is in itself redundant content-wise, scheduling may hold far less relevance. So, it does still remain the task of the employees themselves to contribute to the growth of the business they work for. 

A meeting room manager eliminates booking conflicts and facilitates various benefits and options that apply to the particular meetings being planned.