Introducing The 2024 Hybrid Work Trends Report Get Your Free Copy
A conference room scheduling software is essential for any organization that wants to transition to a flexible and hybrid way of working. All conference room booking systems enable users to essentially book rooms. However, the most important elements of good scheduling software are:
Hybrid work is a workplace model where employees work partly from the office and partly remotely. The foundation of the hybrid work model is flexibility for employees to work from anywhere. Furthermore, the future of the office is more and more about collaboration and less about just doing focused work. Therefore, scheduling office visits and booking meeting spaces are becoming more important than ever!
A few years down the line of the big hybrid work experiment, we can say that one of the most painful parts of it is the “hybrid meetings”. A hybrid meeting is whenever some of the people are in the office and others are joining online.
Painful or not, hybrid meetings are here to stay and we should not just brace them. We have to equip our employees with the best scheduling tools to make them feel awesome and spend enough time collaborating with their teammates!
Conference room scheduling systems have always been with us in one way or another. We’ve all been through the pain of using Microsoft Exchange, Outlook, or Google Calendar to ‘reserve’ meeting ‘resources’. These systems are not built for the purpose of room booking though and as a result, the employee experience is very subpar, to say it mildly.
The focus of the conference room scheduling systems of the future though is more about scheduling meetings in an easy way and providing outstanding employee work experience.
Technology is so deeply ingrained in our life and so the workplace must be. However, in order to get there, meeting scheduling apps have to be at least as good as the apps we use on a daily basis, if not better.
Your main focus when choosing a room booking solution should be the ease of use and potential reach of the application. The adoption of your booking platform and your employee satisfaction relies heavily on that. You really want to enable booking on all screens.
We use many screens for many reasons in our daily life. Your meeting room booking software should be available anywhere in order to increase your employee adoption and satisfaction, thus your use of office space.
The modern conference room booking systems are highly customizable and configurable to suit your need for agility. Some of the more important elements you should look for include:
The future of meeting scheduling in the hybrid workplace relies heavily on technology to help people find the right spaces for their meetings based on a wide range of data.
For example, the system can detect that you have a meeting but no one has booked a room, so maybe you should. Or might be invited to a meeting with 8 people on Thursday, 5 of them are in-person. Maybe you want to book a desk for that day and join them in person? Some of the exciting features of meeting scheduling include:
A good meeting room booking solution can help you create a more productive and collaborative workplace experience for your employees. By the way, all that is part of a list of important hybrid work KPIs you want to track.
By spending less time scheduling conferences, your teams will be able to focus more on their day-to-day activities and get the most out of each meeting. Furthermore, you will significantly reduce the scheduling errors, such as duplicate bookings, wrong rooms, cancelations, etc. With meeting room software, you’re saving yourself a lot of time and frustration in advance.
Last but not least, conference room scheduling software provides you with data on how your employees use your space. You’ll gain valuable insights, such as meeting habits, space utilization, employee satisfaction, etc.
For example, if you frequently book a large room for 10 people to jump on a call just on your own, the software can help you choose a better space for your needs.
It sounds simple, however, the benefits exceed many times the investment in an easy-to-use, customizable and integrated meeting room booking system. If you’re into this topic, you should also check out our piece on how to improve your meeting room management process.
The easiest way to start is by talking to one of our workplace experts about room booking and hybrid work software. You can book a time slot here. Or you can try it yourself by starting a free trial! It is as easy as 1,2,3!
Happy meetings and hybrid working! Don’t forget that OfficeRnD Hybrid also comes with an easy-to-use desk booking system too.
We hope to see you all collaborating in the offices. 🙂