For many office workers, there are no shortages of distractions during a conference room meeting. After all, most conference rooms are rather dull, the material of the meeting can be boring or repetitive, and the conference room meeting being held might be their third of the day. That combination of factors leads to daydreaming, to browsing the Internet on a laptop, or to sneaking in a quick nap during the audio visual presentation.
New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, a fiercely business-oriented individual, just took a big step to cut down on wasted time in conference rooms. He had count-up clocks installed in conference rooms in New York’s City Hall to ensure “people keep track of how much time is passing. The hope is that meetings will become more efficient,” he was cited as saying in the Wall Street Journal. It’s a step to ensure that conference rooms are places of work and collaboration, rather than a busy-time frustration for employees.
Conference room software might be a more suitable — and elegant — way to manage conference room scheduling. The scenario wherein punching in and out of a meeting leads directly to more productivity is hard to imagine. In fact, it sounds more like a way for management to quantify time spent than a method of increasing efficiency. Meetings are their best when the clock isn’t the primary focus, but rather true collaboration and discussions are at the center of attention.
With that in mind, conference room software allows administrators to log time and make meeting reports. That in turns leads to a better and more relevant data set, which in turn helps the administrators learn and modify the organization’s plans accordingly. For example, during a month when meetings are all running long, it might not hurt to keep the conference rooms empty for a few days to get individual responsibilities accounted for.
It will be interesting to see the results of the count-up clocks installed by Mayor Bloomberg. In a city of so many millions, every second is important. Conference rooms are valuable space and the business of City Hall is very important. However, there might be better ways to go about increasing efficiency among state employees than making them micro-log their time.
Photo Courtesy Momos
