Meeting room no-shows may seem like a relatively small issue on the surface, perhaps annoying or inconvenient, but when you take a closer look, meeting room no-shows have a hidden cost to businesses. This workplace frustration is affecting productivity, time and money for your employees.
What is a meeting room no-show?
A meeting room no-show is when an employee 1). books a meeting room, 2). cancels this meeting, but then 3). does not cancel the room booking. As a result, other employees looking for a space to meet, are unable to find availability. Yet, when they walk around the office in search of a meeting room, everything is ‘booked’ but, all the rooms are empty. Thus, causing frustration and loss of productivity.
13% of businesses globally report track meeting room no-show data.
The cost of unproductive employees
Studies show that as many as 40 percent of room bookings result in no-shows. This scenario creates a disruptive environment and on a base level is inconvenient to other employees who can never seem to find a meeting room when they need one. However, the cost of loss of productivity starts to add up and has a bigger implication for your business; as statistics show, 40 percent of your workforce spend three weeks each per year just simply searching space. In monetary terms, this equates to a loss of $1.1 million per year.
The cost to the business
The cost to the business is wasted real estate as a direct result of no-shows. Rents are high and almost all businesses are paying for meeting room space, which on average have 35 percent utilization rates. Statistics show that the average cost of a meeting room is $2,600; calculating this cost, your business is paying $1,690 per meeting room per year for non-utilisation.
40% of your workforce spend three weeks each per year simply searching for a space to meet.
Solving meeting room no-shows
This workplace frustration is easily solved with technology, implementing a meeting room booking software which allows businesses to create a check-in/check-out policy which can be enforced via an RFID-enabled room screen.
Key benefits
- The business can institute an auto-bump policy, which effectively means that when an employee does not check-in at the room screen to start their meeting within a dedicated amount of time (we recommend 15 minutes) of the scheduled start time, their booking is cancelled, the room is now available for others to utilise.
- Globally, only 13 percent of businesses track no shows. By using reporting functionality effectively, it’s a simple way to examine the actual room utilization, and to also investigate meeting room no-shows to understand where and why the problem is occurring.
Your business can save money, time and productivity by implementing the right technology and reduce employee frustrations as they simply search for a meeting space to meet, create and debate.
*All updated statistics referenced since first published in 2016, now based on research in the Modern Workplace Report 2020
