Over the past few weeks I have been asking reception staff all over the world what is the biggest daily issue they have? Overwhelmingly the biggest issue reception staff have every day all over the world is communication.
Reception staff already have enough to deal with as the front facing person to the public. Every building you walk into to visit another person has some form of reception area from a single door that you need to knock on for small business to multiple entrance facilities for much larger businesses. You can have 10 employees or 10,000 employees. The larger the organization the larger the communication issues.
Here are just some of the comments
- For my office and colleagues, will definitely be communication, This is a serious problem
- Team work can be improve what we want in our office things because no body can improve with out positive team work
- Communication, climate control
- For letting me know when they are in or out of the office
- I would improve on the communication between employees and the receptionists.
Reception areas I have visited include…
- just a door
- a doorbell and speaker
- a doorbell and speaker then reception
- single receptionist
- multiple receptionist
- guard house then a reception area
- multiple entrances with multiple reception/security guards
- multiple buildings campus style with multiple reception staff in multiple buildings
These buildings have had as low as 20 employees and up to thousands of employees. The larger the location, more employees the less communication I am sure. How can a company with hundreds or thousands of employees keep reception updated with who is on site and who is off site? Who is on leave and who is not on leave?
What are the communication issues reception staff face every day?
- Visitor turns up to see an employee about an organised meeting and the employee is running late and not in the building (how much time do you waste here every day?)
- Visitor turns up to see an employee about an organised meeting and the employee is sick or on leave
- Visitor colds call to see an employee and you discover the employee is not in the building (how much time do you waster here every day?)
- Telephone call comes in asking for an employee who you do not know is in or out of the building, what do you do? start with the employee desk number first, then try the mobile? then take a message? or are they on leave or sick?
Large businesses need better communication
What if you could…..
- Type an employee name and see if the employee was on or off site
- Type an employee name and see if they are sick or on leave
- Type an employee name and see they are already in a meeting
- See what visitors are due in the next hour into the building
- See VIP visitors soon to arrive and be prepared for them
Having a visitor management system that improves office communication and helps you remove the paper visitor management book will by default also gives you excellent evacuation reporting tools in the event of an emergency.