7 Genuine Ways To Foster Proper Meeting Room Etiquette

It’s easy for employees to become annoyed at their coworkers when a meeting room is left littered with crumbs, or someone on PTO books the only conference space. An office that doesn’t respect meeting room etiquette can find themselves with decreased morale, collaboration, and productivity.

Luckily, enforcing proper meeting room etiquette in your office doesn’t have to be difficult. With the right systems and clear guidelines in place, you can create better workplace experiences and strengthen relationships between coworkers.

Here, we cover the top seven ways to foster proper meeting room etiquette and how you can enforce them in your organization.

Quick Summary:

• Hybrid offices may have extra challenges when it comes to fostering proper meeting room etiquette, as they have to juggle in-person, remote, and hybrid employees.
• Developing room-booking guidelines, ensuring easy access to technology, and prioritizing accessibility are a few of the ways you can promote meeting room etiquette in your office.
• Ensuring booking system usage and enforcing cleanliness rules are among the best practices you can use to keep meeting room etiquette consistent at your organization.

What is Meeting Room Etiquette?

Meeting room etiquette is a code of behavior your employees can follow to respect your office and each other when using shared spaces. When used correctly, it makes everyone’s experience in the office more pleasant.

Proper etiquette helps coworkers get along, collaborate effectively (which can lead to higher engagement and morale), and ultimately be more productive.

What Meeting Room Etiquette Rules Should Hybrid Teams Consider?

If you’re trying to foster proper meeting room etiquette in a hybrid office, it’s important to consider the extra challenges you may face.

For instance, your meetings will likely have to accommodate people both physically in the office and those who are calling (or video calling) in.

Gathering everyone together should be as seamless as possible so that your meetings can start on time, and everyone should be able to hear (or see) each other.

7 Ways to Foster Proper Meeting Room Etiquette in Your Organization

Now that you have an idea of what factors to consider for your hybrid team, let’s dive into the top seven ways you can promote proper conference room etiquette in your office.

Develop Room-Booking Guidelines

When your employees come into the office on different days of the week, it’s especially important to create policies around who can book a space (and when they can do so) that are advantageous to your organization.

For example, you may want to only permit employees who are in the HR or training departments to book your large training rooms. Or, perhaps you only want to allow those at the VP or C-suite level to book executive conference rooms.

Not only can these kinds of policies make for better meetings, but they can prevent difficult situations when someone takes up a room they don’t really need.

You can also lead by example and encourage your employees to be considerate when scheduling meetings. If you’re holding a one-on-one with a direct report, book a smaller space instead of the large training room.

Ensure Easy Access to Technology and Equipment

An efficiently run meeting benefits everyone. But with so many different types of employees using various rooms, it’s important that the equipment in each one is easy to understand and use.

It can be helpful to post guidelines for using the room on the wall inside, which can include instructions for how every employee can access the TV, speaker, remote, or monitor display. You can also use these to tell employees what to do if the WiFi or a piece of equipment stops working during the meeting, such as contacting IT.

Based on the type of meeting you’re holding (whether it’s a presentation, brainstorming session, training, or something else), plan ahead and bring supplies accordingly. Make sure to take any remote employees who are joining virtually into consideration. And while supplies can include technology, they can also be paper handouts or creative tools.

And here’s a useful list on the best audio-visual equipment for meeting spaces.

Model Professionalism in Meetings

When everyone in a meeting acts professionally, it’s easier to leave (on time!) having achieved your goals for the time spent. You can lead the way by dressing and acting appropriately and following all of the etiquette rules you’ve established.

Here are just a few ways you can model professionalism in meetings:

• Start and end on time
• Wear appropriate attire
• Close the door during the meeting
• Pay attention during the meeting
• Ask questions when appropriate
• Don’t leave the room during the meeting unless absolutely necessary
• Avoid distractions like social media, your phone, and unrelated computer tasks

Prioritize Safety and Accessibility

It’s important that all of your employees can effectively use their conference room reservations. This includes hybrid employees on the days they’re in the office, as well as those with disabilities.

Make sure all of your rooms meet all the necessary safety and accessibility requirements (with items like fire extinguishers and alarms when needed), and make them easy to navigate by securing cords and cables so that they’re out of the way.

Especially with hybrid offices, using interactive office maps can make it clear where various spaces are located. Employees getting lost looking for their room can lead to frustration on their part, along with late arrivals.

Give your meeting rooms creative names so that they’re easy to identify, and implement an effective booking system to help your workers find them.

Keep Meeting Rooms Clean and Organized

While it’s a good idea to model professionalism in meetings, you can also lead by example when it comes to setting up a meeting room and keeping it presentable. Limiting your mess makes it easier to transition smoothly in and out of these spaces and reduces distractions.

An easy way to do this is to limit your food and drink consumption in these spaces. A beverage like water, coffee, or tea shouldn’t be an issue, but avoid bringing large, loud, or smelly snacks and meals.

In the same vein, aim to only take what you need into a conference room. You may use a single laptop or notebook, for example, but you likely won’t have to cart multiple types of equipment and supplies in with you.

Keep Meeting Rooms for Meetings

It can be tempting to use a room that isn’t always booked as a storage space for extra supplies, an office for a higher-up who doesn’t have their own, or an area where employees can keep their things.

Meeting rooms should always be free for their intended purpose: meetings. They need to be safe, accessible, and clean, too. If they’re not, it can lead to complications, disagreements, and frustrations.

If you run into this issue, zoom out on the layout of your office and consider reallocating certain rooms to better optimize your space. But once you decide on the purpose of each room, stick to it and use them accordingly.

Implement an Easy-to-Use Booking System

It’s important to have an intuitive booking system, especially if you have a hybrid work model. But if it’s hard to use, your employees may either avoid using it or make mistakes when they do. On the flip side, it will be easier to train any new or current workers to use an intuitive system.

Choose one that can seamlessly integrate with your current technology so your employees won’t have to learn entirely new software.

It’s also a good idea to pick a space management tool that offers advanced analytics, so you can track KPIs and glean information about who is using rooms the most, when they’re typically booked, and for what purpose.

Once your software is in place, make it easy for remote and hybrid employees to figure out the details of a booked room. For in-office workers, install monitors outside each room showing their schedules for the day.

For a straightforward experience, choose a system like OfficeRnD Workplace, which integrates with popular tools like Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Google Calendar to reduce tedious admin work.

4 Meeting Room Etiquette Best Practices

It’s important to have a good set of guidelines in place fostering conference room etiquette, but you need to enforce them too. Here’s a few tips to get you started.

Empower Managers to Keep Meetings on Track

Give your managers the tools they need to start and end on time, and to keep them on track. This can look like encouraging them to make and use agendas, where each section has an allotted time block.

Managers can also appoint one employee to be the timekeeper, who will alert the host or speaker if time is close to running out for each section.

You can also teach your managers to wrap things up by clarifying the next steps and assigning them out as tasks to employees.

This way they can end on time, even if every last discussion point wasn’t resolved in the allotted time. Or, instruct them to leave room for questions at the end, so that they don’t get bombarded when it’s time to go.

For more, check out 21 Ideas for Better Meeting Room Management.

Ensure Booking System Usage

You’ve gone to all the trouble of choosing and implementing an efficient room booking system. Now, it’s time to make sure your employees use it.

When you’re first introducing it to your business, make sure to hold training sessions for all levels of employees, and start to include it in the training curriculum for new hires as well.

Teach your employees all the ways they can use your system to check if a room is being used, cancel a booking if they no longer need it, and easily find the space they reserve.

Provide Guidelines for Optimized Meeting Room Booking

Once you’ve developed booking procedures and conference room etiquette guidelines, make sure managers understand how to implement them. You can hold training sessions, go over your tips in one-on-ones or team meetings, or send out printable PDFs with instructions.

In addition to creating hybrid work policies and specifying who can book which spaces, encourage your managers to reserve the optimal rooms for their intended purpose.

For instance, a presentation might require a room with technology like a TV display and remote. You can also advise them to book their spaces in advance so they’re not scrambling at the last minute trying to find an appropriate room.

Enforce Safety and Cleanliness Rules

Managers and team leads play an important role in ensuring spaces stay safe and clean each day. In addition to leading by example, they can act as the point person for checking that all your employees act as good team members.

For example, if a group lunch is held in a conference room, instruct the manager to remind everyone to clean up afterward so one person isn’t stuck doing all the work. They can also check that all attendees take their things with them when they leave.

But removing physical items isn’t the only way to get a room ready for the next group. Your managers can also make sure that employees log out of shared technologies and move everything (like chairs and mice) back to the way they found them, so that back-to-back meetings can start on time.

Meeting Room Etiquette Made Easy with OfficeRnD Workplace

As you now know, implementing an effective booking system is one of the easiest ways to foster proper meeting room etiquette.

That’s where OfficeRnD Workplace can help. It displays a virtual floor plan that’s intuitive for your in-office, hybrid, and remote employees to use and simple for them to learn. They can easily book rooms and desks on the web or on their phone, based on the rules and restrictions you set.

Plus, you get access to advanced analytics and space usage data, which you can use as insight to plan the layout of your office appropriately.

Get started for free with OfficeRnD Workplace today, or book a live demo with one of our workplace experts.

FAQ

What is Conference Etiquette?

Conference etiquette is a set of guidelines employees should follow to respect each other in conference rooms and other shared workspaces.

What Should You Do Before Leaving the Meeting Room?

Before leaving a collective workspace, put everything back where you found it and log out of any shared systems. To be courteous to your coworkers, you’ll also want to clean up any mess you make, take all of your stuff with you, and turn off the lights as you go.

What Are the Etiquette Rules for Meetings?

A few etiquette rules for meetings you can follow include:

• Start and end your meeting on time
• Don’t double-book meeting rooms
• If you are no longer using a meeting room, cancel your booking ahead of time

What should be in a Meeting Room?

A well-equipped meeting room should include essential items such as a conference table that accommodates all participants comfortably, ergonomic chairs, and reliable high-speed internet access. It should also have audio-visual equipment like a projector or large screen for presentations, speakers, and a good quality microphone system for clear communication. It’s also beneficial to have a whiteboard or smartboard for brainstorming, as well as easy access to power outlets and charging stations for laptops and mobile devices.

What is the Most Appropriate Meeting Etiquette for Participants?

The most appropriate meeting etiquette for participants includes arriving on time to respect the schedules of others and staying engaged by actively listening and participating in discussions. It’s important for participants to silence their mobile devices to avoid distractions and to speak clearly and concisely when contributing. Participants should also respect the speaking time of others, avoiding interruptions, and follow the meeting agenda to keep discussions on track.