Hybrid working - the death of the meeting room

Does Hybrid working mean the death of the meeting room?

Just because many of us are still working from home, for some, if not all of the time and we can all video conference from our desks whether we’re at home or in the office, does it mean the end for meeting rooms and meeting spaces? 

Hybrid Meeting Rooms!

We don’t think so, in fact we believe the exact opposite is true. Hybrid working is driving the need for more and better equipped meeting spaces. 

Firstly, let’s start with a look at what hybrid working really means?

Talk of hybrid working, hybrid meetings and hybrid meeting rooms is everywhere but what does it really mean? Ask around and you’ll get a multitude of answers.  

For us as individuals

For us it means dividing our working time between office and home, between in-person meetings and video calls and online collaboration.  

For our organisations

For organisations it’s all about providing productive working environments and designing connected spaces that enable employees to work wherever they are.  

What hybrid working means varies between companies and will continue to evolve as things continue to change and we all settle into new ways of working.  

Equal experience

The key to successful hybrid working is to offer all employees an equal experience, enabling everyone the same opportunity to collaborate and communicate whether they are at home, at their desk in the office or in the meeting room.  

Meeting Hubs

Rather than a place for our entire workforce to reside, our offices are set to become social and meeting hubs for those all-important meetings and gatherings. 

Reviewing and adapting our office spaces for hybrid success – hybrid meeting rooms 

In our experience hybrid working brings with it an increase in the number of meetings that involve remote participants. In fact, we predict that all of our meetings will probably have at least one, if not more, remote participants. So, video enabling workspaces and meeting rooms is a priority, allowing employees to communicate effectively with colleagues, wherever they are.  

There are so many considerations for your hybrid meeting rooms; Do you need to be able to bring your own devices into your meeting rooms? Which collaboration platforms do you need to incorporate into your meeting spaces? How about interactive displays? & don’t forget the audio! We’ve all become so used to good quality audio perhaps with noise-cancelling technology from our headsets at home. Why should you expect anything less from your meeting spaces? Consider microphones with automatic tracking or speaker mode to make it easy for your remote participants to follow. 

Long live the hybrid meeting room!

While some predict that working from home and hybrid working is set to be the end of the meeting room, in our experience it’s the complete opposite. More and more companies are reviewing and updating their meeting spaces, bringing their meeting room technology up to date to accommodate the new hybrid working mix. 

Successful meetings

Is it time to update your meeting spaces? Get in touch with us to find out how. 

If a good, all round meeting experience is important to you, then AuDeo can help. We more than 20 years experience designing technology into meeting spaces and our approach is appreciated by many customers.  

Whether you are looking at re-purposing your rooms to enable more effective use of your spaces OR adding more video conferencing and collaboration equipment to connect to whatever platforms you’ve chosen, we’re here to help you!