5 Tips for Better College Meeting Room Management
Space and desk management solutions can benefit more than just workplaces. In fact, universities and colleges are increasingly seeking out platforms that help streamline booking and management processes for their meeting rooms, offices and other campus resources.
Let’s explore how meeting room management solutions, in particular, can help colleges enable flexibility and empower staff and students to make better use of campus facilities.
How Does Meeting Room Management Benefit Universities?
Better tools for managing conference room bookings and schedules can have considerable benefits for both staff and students.
Streamline the meeting room booking processes
Using manual processes to book spaces is often a time suck and can lead to confusion around who has actually booked what. This can result in things like double-bookings or abandoned meetings - wasting time and resources.
With meeting room booking software, university administrators have a more organized way to manage conference room bookings and processes. For example, abandoned meeting protection can be automated, meaning if someone doesn’t check into their reservation within a set time frame (usually 15 minutes), the space is released and can be used by someone else, on an ad-hoc basis.
This also helps guide staff and students by giving them a clear understanding of policies around room bookings. Avoid confusion and give your people a real-time view of what’s available, what isn’t and how to book with room scheduling software.
Enable greater flexibility and visibility into campus resources
Staff and students on college campuses have unique schedules - no two timetables look the same. With less predictable calendars, scheduling solutions support more flexibility and provide complete visibility into what resources are available for use.
Real-time schedules also mean people can see what’s happening in each building so they know what rooms are reserved for classes or a meeting. Based on that information they can grab an open room. Using a resource and space scheduling tool empowers everyone to get the most out of their campus on a regular basis.
Plan for the future with better forecasting tools and space data
A big bonus of using a technology solution to manage your room booking and scheduling is the data you capture in the process. When you know how spaces are being used, you can better plan for the future.
Whether you are future-planning for upcoming facilities or trying to make better use of the space you already have, your space usage data can guide your plans. Dive deeper into which rooms are used and who from campus is using them. From there, you can determine what type of resources would be the best investment for the university based on space usage.
5 Tips for Better College Meeting Room Management
1. Be clear and direct about your policies
Booking and managing meeting rooms is a whole lot easier when your staff and faculty understand your requirements. Without clear communication on how to book, people will either revert to the old ways of reserving rooms or become frustrated with their lack of understanding.
By clearly defining your meeting space policies you give faculty and staff the confidence to work within those guidelines. Be sure to include details on expected meeting room etiquette as well. From cleaning up the space to returning resources to their rightful place, make it clear what you expect from your people and minimize any confusion.
2. Use room displays for easy access
The most important part of room scheduling is visibility. It’s critical to ensure everyone knows what’s available and when. Digital room displays can be set up outside of conference rooms to keep schedules and events updated in real-time. With Robin’s digital room displays you can:
- Start impromptu meetings from the display
- Check in to scheduled meetings & mark rooms as in use
- View the daily agenda for the space
- View the event organizer and event attendees
- View info about the space, and system info for the display
- Alert facilities teams to any problems with the room
3. Pay attention to high & low demand rooms
It’s natural for people to have a preferred meeting space. This only becomes a problem when too many people have the same favorite space. Take note of which spaces are used most and which spaces aren’t being booked as much.
Do your most popular rooms have certain amenities? It may be worth investing in more of those items for your other spaces. Is the lighting bad or the temperature off in your least used spaces? It’s probably time for an upgrade. Correcting these issues can help with more consistent bookings from room to room, allowing a more relaxed schedule in your most popular spaces and helping to maximize your space’s use.
4. Find the right room scheduling software
Ditch the headaches associated with manual booking - no more spreadsheets, no more stress. The best space booking software will ensure your processes are streamlined and your resources are clearly displayed. Give people the visibility they need to find the right spaces and rooms and give yourself the tools you need to manage it all.
5. Be sure to include the right room information
Not all meeting rooms will be organized the same. Different types of meetings require different types of resources. Some rooms may just have seating for quick catch-ups and other rooms may need video conferencing tools for larger, hybrid meetings.
Whatever the case, make sure you clearly indicate which rooms hold which tools so people can choose the best space for their needs. Some examples of information to include:
- Room capacity - how many people can comfortably fit?
- Number of seats - will there be standing room?
- Meeting technology - what tools do you have on hand in the room?
Room displays are a great way to make this information readily available for your teams.
Invest in the Right Space Management Solutions
Looking to streamline your university's meeting room booking processes? We can help with that. Robin is the leading solution for better conference room scheduling and management.
The best part? The benefits of our platform extend beyond meeting room management. Robin’s workplace experience platform gives university leaders the tools needed to encourage connection and engage and retain faculty, even through large-scale transitions.
Whether powering seamless scheduling, flexible seating or improved visibility into resources campus-wide, Robin makes managing shared resources easier than ever.
Ready to learn more about our room scheduling software? Get started with Robin, today.
