Did you know that an average office employee attends about 62 meetings a month? Yes, according to a study by Atlassian. Since the pandemic, organizations worldwide have seen a rise of 12.9% in the number of meetings per employee, and it tells you a lot about the need for workplace collaboration.
Yes, meetings are essential for communication, brainstorming, and collective decision-making. But many organizations fall victim to chaos in the absence of an efficient system that lets them book and organize meetings.
How? Consider this. You finally gather the attendees for a particular meeting, fix a time for all, and arrange a conference room for the same. But only to find it is already occupied by an over-running meeting.
Conference room booking software is an easy solution designed to alleviate these problems. A comprehensive booking solution lets the employees find and reserve conference rooms in advance while eliminating the issues of scheduling, canceling, and rescheduling.
Let us more closely understand the ins and outs of conference room booking software.
How does conference room booking software work?
With conference room booking software, managers can use a desktop or a smartphone app to view room availability. They can access information about the date, time, the number of attendees, meeting type, amenities required, etc.
Depending upon the availability, they can make an online reservation and send out invites to the attendees. Moreover, at the time of the meeting, invited employees can check into the booked rooms using the conference room booking software. If they fail to check in within a specified time, the software will automatically cancel the reservation and make the room available for others.
Additionally, facility managers can review the scheduled meetings and initiate the cleaning and sanitization process once the meeting is over.
As the work culture evolves, the need for an effective conference room booking software increases manifold. These meeting rooms have now become a shared space for communication, collaboration, and inclusion. Not to mention, it facilitates effective space utilization and boosts productivity.
While many organizations have already included conference room booking software in their operations, its successful implementation is still a big challenge for many facility managers.
Here’s how to deploy conference room booking software in your office to ensure smooth functioning.
1. Inform employees of the available features
Booking sites for small business has never been easier. Now you can let your employees and managers understand the various features of the conference room booking software. Involve them early during the implementation process. Ensure they know how to operate it and whom to call in case of technical difficulties. The better they understand the software, the faster they’ll be able to adapt to it.
2. Create a team
Build a team that will help with the training and implementation of the conference room booking software. You can pick people who will also be doing the pilot run and evaluating the software or the employees who will use the software most often. Encourage them to share their experience of the software with others and help those skeptical of using it.
3. Configure the conference room booking software system
Any new software needs to be configured according to your business operations. Your internal team and the vendors can help you figure out how to make the software work for you. So, whether you need to integrate the solution with other software or need customized features, you can allocate enough time for these configurations.
4. Run pilot programs
Consider pre-testing it with a small group within your company before moving forward with the full-scale installation of the new conference room booking software. This way, you can take critical feedback regarding the utility of the software and identify any issues to be resolved.
After successful pilot runs, your IT department can work with the vendor to install the software across the organization.
5. Training sessions
Once the employees are well-versed with the software features, you can help them get started with the conference room booking software through various training sessions. Here’s you can go about it.
6. One-on-one sessions
Team leads can plan video conferencing or face-to-face sessions to familiarize the employees with the new conference room booking software. They can answer any queries related to the software rollout, installation, features, possible operational challenges, and more.
7. Video lessons
Your employees might be in different locations or even in different time zones in a hybrid work setup. If your employees are not available for a shared session, video tutorials can be helpful. Team leads or managers can share pre-recorded training videos and on boarding documents with the employees.
Employees can access this video conveniently and visually understand how this cloud-based conference room booking software works.
8. Phased rollout
After the employees are thoroughly familiar with the ins and outs of the conference room booking software, HR managers can plan a phased rollout by keeping the employees in the loop via emails.
9. Track results
Review the results once your conference room booking software is fully implemented in the organization. Continue to monitor employees’ feedback on the usage data and evaluate the KPIs to see if the implementation has been successful. This will not only help you identify any changes required but will also be helpful for future planning.
Final words
The right conference room booking software can seamlessly integrate into your workplace and transform how your employees manage and conduct meetings. And while the software you choose should be combined with top-notch features, ensuring smooth employee transition is also critical.
For successful implementation, you must ensure a step-by-step process – from acquainting your employees with the features to detailed training sessions to a phased rollout – and pave the way for streamlined booking processes.
WorkInSync offers comprehensive conference room scheduling software. It helps track meeting space usage in real-time, allows room reservations, and more. The meeting room booking solution also integrates with Google calendar. Book a demo today and learn more about the app.
