Meeting room design is an essential contributor to employee satisfaction and ultimately, business success. Ed Morgan, COO of DisplayNote, outlines the key points about good and bad meeting room design in the new era of hybrid working.
Everyone in business is keenly aware that meeting spaces are a crucial part of every workplace. These are the spaces where creativity flows, key discussions are brought to the table and important decisions are made. Of course, as we all know, meeting rooms are also the place for some of the mundane yet important everyday stuff like project updates or check-ins. Therefore, because they are used so often and for such a wide range of activities, meeting rooms should be designed to accommodate the various interactions that take place inside.
Running central to the success of all these requirements is collaboration. Good collaboration is necessary for workplace productivity and innovation, so the more a company can provide spaces that foster collaboration, the better. In addition, the impression a meeting room design makes with a prospective client or interviewee means the implications of transparency, trust and professionalism should also be considered.
All of these requirements are amplified by the demands of today’s new era of hybrid working. Now companies are having to radically rethink the traditional layout of meeting rooms as they strive to design collaborative spaces that are suitable for hybrid meetings. Having employees work on a flexible schedule and use office spaces at their discretion prompts companies and their facilities management teams to examine workplace functions like office design and space allocation, how meetings are held and how employees engage with the space.
Elements of a meeting room design that can lead to unproductive meetings
Meeting rooms are frequently overlooked in terms of design. Believe it or not, design elements such as the type and placement of furniture, meeting room technology, lighting and room decor play an important role in the direction a meeting can go. Yet, many meeting room designs seen today fail to support the types of conversations that take place inside. There are a number of key issues that commonly prevent effective meetings, but two main issues are:
1. Faulty / difficult to use technology
2. Outdated designs including uncomfortable furniture, inadequate lighting and the wrong screen size for the room
Elements of a good office meeting room design
Today’s offices are now adopting a wide range of meeting room design options, bringing modern interior design ideas into collaborative workspaces. This can involve utilising cutting-edge technology, ergonomic furniture and embracing natural light. Here are four elements of a good office meeting room design that your company might want to consider:
1. Choose an appropriate layout
Meeting rooms have many different purposes. Some are used for board meetings, others are for client meetings or presentations, while still others are just used for relaxed and casual brainstorming sessions. That’s why there is no one best meeting room layout that works for every office. Smaller tables that can be placed to create one big table and moved around as needed might encourage creativity and boost participant engagement.
2. Investing in good quality and easy to use meeting room tech
Meeting room technology must be user-friendly. The technology should enable participants to share their screens and content seamlessly with other participants from a device of their choice. When you don’t have to worry about setting up for meetings and making sure your devices are compatible with the tech already in the room, focus and productivity increases, and your staff can communicate more efficiently with one another, which is the whole point of meeting centrally to share resources and information.
This is one of the reasons we developed Launcher – to act as an interface for the meeting room display, giving users simple access to their calls, calendars and apps on the meeting room screen. Thanks to the ability to customise apps, your room users enjoy a consistent and standardised experience in every meeting space across your business. This improves user experience and confidence with using tech in the meeting space and reduces support requests.
3. Communication and connectivity
Communication is essential in the modern workplace, so, when working with remote staff, global team members or outside clients, being able to easily include them in your meetings is a must. Using digital meeting tools like screen-sharing and note-taking software are practical methods to ensure good communication, as is good etiquette such as making an agenda, reading in advance, using the session for discussing important topics. Audio quality is also very important, because without working audio, communication will be extremely difficult.
4. Environmental factors
Lighting, temperature, acoustics, furniture and movement space should all be considered while designing a meeting area. For example, the lighting, air conditioning and furniture should all be at a comfortable enough level to allow people to concentrate on the discussion rather than being distracted by the uncomfortable environment. People should feel comfortable enough to sit for a longer period time, even if discussions extend beyond a certain duration.
In summary, meeting rooms are an essential part of any workplace and their design can have a big impact on the success of meetings. In the new era of hybrid working, it is even more important to have meeting rooms that are designed to accommodate both in-person and remote participants.
