In this article, ESCO explore the meaning and issues behind Ghost and Zombie meetings in the corporate world and how firms can cease these scary meetings with a simple software solution. Follow Trish, marketing executive, as we dive into this worrying issue.
Have you ever wanted to book a meeting room in the office at a specific time but unfortunately all the rooms are taken? You can blame it on your poor luck, or you are just experiencing the ‘Ghost and Zombie’ meeting symptom.
What exactly is a ‘Ghost and Zombie’ meeting? Ghost meetings are a one-off meeting that are being scheduled by your colleagues but resulting in no show ups. As for Zombie meetings, it is similar to Ghost meetings, but they reoccur regularly. This is one of the common issues that most people working in the office face daily.
''A research conducted by Teem [1] has revealed that about 21% of employees in most firms have scheduled Ghost meetings for one another and at least 4% of them have arranged a Zombie meeting.''
One of the underlying reasons for such meetings are due to the packed schedules by other colleagues, thus forgetting about the meetings rooms that they had booked.
The proliferation of the ‘Ghost and Zombie’ meetings in an office space has caused exasperation between colleagues as they are unable to secure a meeting room and when chanced upon an empty meeting room, it is booked.
When this issue happens, Facilities and IT Managers are often being put to blame and causing disruptions to their working schedules to find an available meeting room for them. This whole issue can lead to an impact in the firm’s productivity, cost and causing unrest in the workplace. Furthermore, Smallbizdaily [2] mentioned that the combination of the ghost and zombie meetings can lead to a 30 hours waste of productivity each month and this has become a global corporate problem.
''In order to mitigate the issue, ESCO partnered with Synergy Sky and they have developed a software solution - Synergy of Things that leverages data from sensors, behavior and your calendar, to make all meeting more efficient.''
Synergy of Things’s IoT sensor technology can automatically release booked rooms when no one shows up for the meeting. Furthermore, the meeting organizer can be notified through email alerts if the meeting room is empty and will be given the option to hold or release the room. This will ensure that firms no longer need to deal with ‘Ghost and Zombie’ meetings, thus reducing cost for the company.
Other than the automatic release of no-show rooms function, Synergy of Things allows you to join every meeting in one touch, regardless of the vendor you or the participants are using and thus, reducing any delay to the meeting. Another function is whereby Synergy of Things allows the organizer to take control of the meetings with a clean and intuitive dashboard for all business meetings. The organizer can add and remove participants, forward meetings to rooms and endpoints, mute and unmute participants, lock virtual meetings and to even create lists of important meetings. The control panel enables you to see the meeting insights and technical features that are needed in order to save time and cost on your company meetings.
''All in all, Synergy of Things is a great solution for firms who are looking to reduce ‘Ghost and Zombie’ meeting rooms, reduce any redundancy cost and to increase efficiency and productivity of their workers.''
Furthermore, the functions that Synergy of Things has is important in the ever changing IoT landscape and firms should be leveraging on these contemporary booking systems.
To find out more about Synergy of Things or would like to deploy the system in your office, contact esco@esco.com.sg now.
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