Since 2000, the amount of time employees spend in meetings has risen between 8% to 10% every year. But when it comes to meetings, quantity does not necessarily mean quality.
The Bottom Line. Meeting room technology is often the primary cause of meeting delays. Many meetings are delayed because participants are struggling with the equipment in the room, either because the system is outdated or because they aren’t sure how to use it.
Why It Matters. The average meeting delay is just over 10 minutes, which translates to more than three days of productivity lost every year. In the U.S., the cost of poorly organized meetings was nearly $400 billion in 2019. Delayed meetings also lead to more IT support calls, potentially overburdening your IT team.
But perhaps the worst consequence of delayed or unproductive meetings is the frustration they cause for meeting participants.
- Nearly three-quarters of employees say they waste time every week due to unnecessary or cancelled meetings
- 45% of employees said they feel overwhelmed by the number of meetings they have to attend
Our Expert Advice. Here are four ways to eliminate meeting delays to improve productivity, morale, and your bottom line.
- Create a consistent user experience. When meeting technology varies from room to room, participants struggle more to use it because there is not one standardized, familiar system.
With easy to operate and touchless AV solutions—enabled by AVOS from AV Solutions—users can launch meetings from familiar personal devices including laptops, smartphones, and tablets, all with the same user interface.
Bonus: Touchless meeting room solutions also improve health and safety in the workplace by reducing shared touchpoints that can spread germs.
- Make sure you have the right technology. At the minimum, your meeting rooms should have: a display, microphones, speakers, a PTZ camera, audio and video conferencing capabilities, and a wired or (preferably) wireless connection to the display.
Pro tip: Don’t downplay your audio. Sixty-seven percent of workers in the U.S. say that background noise interrupts their meetings at least some of the time, and 40% say audio issues occur frequently.
- Use room booking software. Forty percent of workers report wasting at least 30 minutes looking for an open meeting space before they even get the meeting on the calendar. Room booking software gives employees a centralized place to immediately see which meeting spaces are available when.
- Ask your employees what they need. The way your employees work has shifted over the past few years and the technology they need in the workplace has probably changed, too.
Example: A traditional whiteboard did the job when all your meeting participants were in the room together. But now, chances are every meeting has at least one remote participant so a digital whiteboard is probably a better fit.
Get Started. At AV Solutions, we take pride in solving even the most challenging audiovisual and conferencing problems, including the ones contributing to meeting delays. We understand the negative impacts meeting delays can have on your business, and we are here to help you mitigate them.
To start addressing and minimizing your meeting delays, get in touch with AV Solutions today.
