Tips for Meeting Room Management In Open Offices
An open office is a work environment where there are no closed rooms or walls between the employees. Usually, employees work in the same room beside each other seated along with a huge desk in their respective positions.
Open offices came into existence when the employees wanted to cut their business costs through reduced construction fees. Open office setting not only reduces the cost but also forces the employees to be collaborative and helps them to mingle with each other in a personal way which in turn helps in the discussion of the business deals credibly. An open office is also very convenient to supervise all the employees at a time.
Though the open office is useful in many ways there are also some aspects you should sort out such as the disturbance caused by people in the open rooms and the spreading of the illness etc. These stumbling blocks should be taken care of. You can organize meeting rooms to vanquish these kinds of problems. Here are a few tips for the management of these meeting rooms.
1. Use the meeting room scheduling system
Use the best meeting room scheduling system (like PICKTIME) to avoid hostility in the meeting rooms. Using the scheduling system will be helpful to you in many ways. Since technology is growing people are responding to messages rather than notices and phone calls. These scheduling systems send emails and alert messages before the meetings are scheduled and people can follow accordingly. They can also see when the meetings are scheduled in the calendar. Booking the meeting rooms using this software is also very facile and you can do it from anywhere you want. Therefore, it will save you time.
2. Communicate about the policies
Let the employees know about the policies regarding the booking of the meeting rooms and then allow them to use them. Knowing about the rules allows the employees to follow the rules. Most of the tussles occur due to the misunderstanding in following the rules. You should make sure that the employees should know about their obligation to cancel their schedule to free the meeting room. You should make sure that booking large workrooms for personal work is not appropriate. Everybody should share the responsibility of using the meeting rooms effectively.
3. Increase Visibility
The glass-fronted meeting rooms increase the liability for using the room. When you can’t hide in a room then it is easy to engross its use. When the people outside knew that the room was in use there are fewer chances that the meeting gets interrupted. Meetings also end at the correct time by seeing the people gathering outside the room for the next meeting. Meetings not only end promptly but they also start exactly. Thus they not only help organize the meetings on time but they are also helpful in maintaining the order with less chance for a disturbance to occur.
4. Promote private space
The conflicts in the meeting rooms always occur due to the misuse of the rooms. A meeting room need not be booked for a private chat. This usually comes under the office management. A private space should always be created for the employees to chat. There are many ways where private spaces can be organized in an open-plan office room. You should be creative enough about the plants and the arrangements of screens and you should also be very careful about the comfortable seating in the corners. You should encourage one-to-one chats for the successful meetings to go on.
5. Start at on-boarding
You should have some standards and expectations for organizational life. The expectations about the meeting room behavior and systems should be featured on the onboarding documents. You should always train your new employees about the usage of the systems and apps. Also train them about arranging and attending meetings. You should explain to them your expectations of their behavior in the meeting room and their responsibility to make use of every resource carefully.
6. Make meetings a positive experience
Most organizations know that their key assets are their good tools and efficient communication. Improvement of these areas is very much helpful in improving the business automatically. Some meeting room scheduling tools are very much helpful in such aspects as good communication and are worth investing your time in.
When it comes to meetings, many people view them as a necessary evil. However, with a few simple tips, you can make your meetings more positive and productive.
One way to make meetings more positive is to manage the meeting room properly in an open office environment. If people are constantly coming and going, it can be disruptive and make it difficult to focus on the meeting. Make sure the room is clean and organized, and that all of the necessary materials are available.
Another way to make meetings more positive is to set ground rules at the beginning of the meeting. This will help ensure that everyone is on the same page and that the meeting stays on track. Some ground rules you may want to consider include: being respectful of others’ time, not interrupting others, and not checking your phone or computer during the meeting.
7. Use different spaces for different purposes
Sometimes large conference rooms are necessary for board meetings that are conducted once a month. But for small status update meetings, you do not need a large room. So you can refer to rooms that can be used for different purposes. This way you can save money and use it for multipurpose.
These steps are useful for managing the meeting rooms in the open offices which will be helpful for the people to avoid noise and disturbance from others. These are also useful for respecting the privacy of other people.
