Win Back Hours: Smarter Scheduling That Uncovers and Solves Hidden Booking Inefficiencies

Booking meeting rooms and workspaces is a big source of wasted time. Checking in visitors and reserving catering, parking spaces, and equipment wastes more time. Add in the burden on the IT team and front desk staff, and you’ve tallied up hours and hours of wasted time with cumbersome booking and visitor management processes.

The good news is that today’s modern solutions can win you back hours by solving underlying issues and eliminating slow and problematic processes.  

Top Booking Challenges Companies Face

This year, we’ve had a lot of conversations with new customers about the challenges of traditional booking systems and what they want moving forward. The top things discussed included:

1. A desire to switch to a SaaS solution to free up their IT department.
2. They want to make the booking process easier – because people expect daily office processes to be easy and don’t want to waste time finding and reserving a space.
3. A better way to register visitors to enhance security.
4. Wanting their workspace and visitor management solution to do more for them.

We also had a few unique asks specific to a customer’s business or industry, and that’s where Resource Central’s flexibility and customization capabilities are handy. Below, we’ll outline why these four things may be hidden opportunities for you to win back time from booking and use it for more productive tasks.

IT Departments Are Drowning in Updates, Bugs, and Upgrades

IT departments that are asked to manage office workspace and visitor management systems are weighed down with ongoing updates, handling system errors, creating workarounds for prohibitive features, and manually processing updates to stay compliant with security regulations.

Choosing a SaaS solution that provides centralized management, automation, and enhanced collaboration can significantly help IT teams by improving efficiency, security, and lowering costs.

Here’s how switching from on-premises to SaaS could free up your IT department:

1. It’s faster to deploy
2. It is easier to scale as the business evolves
3. It offers IT teams greater collaboration and efficiency
4. SaaS solutions are lower in cost
5. Security features are more robust, with the latest encryption technologies already in place
6. Easily integrates with the office’s existing tech stack for less of a burden on the IT team
7. The data and infrastructure of the solution are hosted and managed by the service provider (not the IT team anymore), not on-site, so it’s the service provider’s job to ensure the solution is secure, up-to-date, and available
8. Upgrades, updates, and customizations are done by the service provider (not the IT team)
9. Easier to mobilize the workforce with remote, secure access and usability

IT teams are weighed down by outdated workspace management systems that require manual updates and constant monitoring, as well as inbound service tickets when the application fails to perform properly.  Now imagine if you were able to make all the time that it took disappear, letting the IT team focus on other projects and critical endeavors.

Booking a Workspace Shouldn’t Take More Than a Minute (if that)

Employees, especially in hybrid or flexible working models, can waste a significant amount of time searching for available desks and meeting rooms.

A study from Wired found employees in hot-desking environments might lose about two weeks total per year. That’s 10 wasted business days or 80 hours of lost productivity. Time is further wasted when meetings get rescheduled or desks need to be rebooked, and the administrative burden rises if the workspace system in place (if one is in place) can’t automatically adjust. 

Beyond wasted time, having a cumbersome and inaccurate booking process can be distracting, interrupting the flow of work and inhibiting focus and quality of output.

This is why Resource Central specifically ensures always updated visibility for available spaces (desks, meeting rooms, conference rooms, etc.) and automatically adjusts if a booking is canceled or rescheduled. Moreover, it flags and prevents potential double-bookings, solving issues before they even happen. Plus, because employees can quickly book a space from their work computer or mobile device using color-coded floor plans and search features, it’s quicker and easier for them to find and reserve the workspace they need.

Streamlining Visitor Management to Tighten Security

Did you know that Resource Central can also carve out more time by automating visitor management? From registering multiple visitors and configuring authorization zones to creating recurring visits and custom visitor types.

While the front desk personnel should still provide a warm, welcoming experience, imagine if they were able to already have visitor badge access cards ready to go, not have to worry about security risks (thanks to the Visitor Authorization feature), and multitask by registering a few people at a time.

Bonus: Another way to save even more time is to set up self-registration kiosks in the front lobby that integrate directly with the office management system. With these digital kiosks, receptionists no longer have to spend an inordinate amount of time signing visitors in and notifying hosts.

Cut Back Time By Booking More Than Just Workspaces 

Finally, one of the biggest ways we see customers cut down on wasted time after switching to Resource Central is the solution’s unique ability to book more than workspaces. Unlike when with traditional booking systems or Outlook®, using Resource Central means you can:

• reserve a room
• order catering
• request IT support and equipment
• reserve parking spaces
• register visitors, all in one booking 

Traditionally, you would have to:

1. Find and book a meeting room
2. Invite all the people you want to the meeting (and add the room to the meeting)
3. Contact the office catering department to order lunch
4. Contact the front desk or security to reserve parking spaces for the two visitors you added to the meeting, plus schedule their information in the system for when they arrive

We could keep going, but you get the idea – booking a room, then everything else, is just time wasted that you could be using for other tasks and projects. Learn how to book meetings, catering, room services, and equipment all in one place here.

Up Next: Read real-world case studies from current Resource Central users here.