Meeting room mayhem within Government departments
02 February 2010
Government departments are needlessly frittering away millions of pounds each year through meeting room mismanagement, according to Paul Statham, managing director at RNM Systems/Condeco.
When it comes to implementing new ways of working, the office meeting room rarely comes into conversation. However, with one British county council recently claiming that it had spent over £250K a year on hiring external meeting room venues, this is clearly an area of high wastage that many government departments should be addressing in order to cut costs.
In the private sector, most companies have slashed corporate travel budgets and returned to a culture of in-house meetings, as a direct product of the recession. Consequently, the meeting room has once again become an intrinsic hub in the workplace. Businesses have started to invest more in these communal office areas, spending heavily on video conferencing equipment, cutting-edge digital signage, WiFi access and room booking software in order to boost efficiency and create a strong impression for clients and customers.
Poorly managed meeting rooms
Whilst the business drivers and requirements within the government may differ dramatically, essentially the cost saving rationale is still the same. Poorly managed meeting rooms can be a major drain on resources and budgets. Many government departments tend to outsource these facilities, and those that do not often expand their meeting room capacity, taking on valuable office space on the false perception that they are utilising their meeting rooms to the maximum.
In reality, occupancy of meeting rooms within government departments is at approximately 60 per cent. Large rooms are booked for small meetings and there is always high demand for meetings during peak hours, adding to the perception that meeting rooms are always occupied. Up to 40 per cent of booked rooms can be affected by ‘no shows’, meaning that a room will appear to be booked, audiovisual equipment and catering will be ordered and the facilities will not be used. By managing this area more effectively, organisations would not need to squander money on outsourcing, expanding real estate and wasted catering.
Smart meeting rooms
RNM Systems/Condeco works with government organisations to help them optimise meeting room occupancy. By using tools, such as workspace management software, Condeco, organisations can conduct workplace surveys to audit meeting room utilisation.
This will expose areas of under-utilisation and show where an organisation could increase and improve meeting room usage. More often than not, these surveys will uncover vast under-utilisation and highlight the need for smarter meeting room management.
By implementing a real time room-booking tool along with the latest in touch screen digital signage, organisations can enable employees to cross reference and book, order necessary audiovisual equipment and catering facilities and cancel or postpone meeting rooms from an easy-to-use platform, like the company Intranet or Outlook. This will drastically reduce the running costs incurred through meeting rooms and paper-based room booking systems and help to cut under-utilisation.
Condeco Screens are a real innovation in meeting room technology. The screens can either stand alone or work in conjunction with Condeco’s room booking system to display meeting details in front of each room. Employees can check-in and out of the meeting room before and after a meeting and if nobody attends the meeting, the room will be released and considered empty, allowing others to take full advantage. The screens can also enable RFID swipe card functionality to ensure the correct person who booked the room checks in. They have LED lights as standard to visually show if the room is occupied (red), free (green) or if there is a scheduled meeting (amber). The screens help to eliminate meeting conflicts whilst enhancing utilisation and reducing ‘no shows’.
Condeco is providing a large number of central and local government departments with the capacity to raise their meeting room utilisation and save money that is wasted through low occupancy levels, outsourced meeting spaces and real estate costs.
For further information, please contact:
Mette Madsen
Condeco
+44 (0)20 7001 2020
mette.madsen@condecosoftware.com