Once, in the not-too-distant past, office workers all had the same meeting experiences. Participants gathered in a conference room to discuss performance data, collaborate on upcoming projects, and brainstorm new ideas together. Then the coronavirus pandemic triggered a massive paradigm shift in how and where we work, ushering in a new era of remote workforces and digital workspaces. In the post-pandemic workplace, hybrid meetings with in-person and remote participants are the new norm, and now meeting experiences aren’t the same for everyone. 

Now, the goal of modern conference room design isn’t equality, where employees have the same meeting experiences, but equity, where employees have fair meeting experiences. Simply put: how can we make the hybrid meeting experience good for everyone?

Keep reading to learn three considerations for redesigning your conference rooms in Scottsdale, AZ, or worldwide to be more equitable for all participants.

The modern workplace is undergoing a profound paradigm shift in 2021. Full-time in-office work is no longer the norm; instead, the new hybrid workplace includes an eclectic mix of full-time remote employees, full-time in-office employees, and part-time remote and in-office workers. 

In the wake of these shifts, organizations must rethink one of the most foundational components of the modern office: meeting rooms. How does meeting room design need to pivot to meet the needs of globally dispersed workforces? Below, we outline four considerations your organization should keep top of mind to design effective and productive meeting spaces for your office locations in Scottsdale, AZ, and throughout the world. 

It’s easy to think that something is better just because it’s more expensive. And if you are comparing, say, a Kia to a Lamborghini, that might be true. But in a lot of cases, it isn’t. In fact, the cheap seats at the ballpark usually have the best view. When it comes to audiovisual solutions, expensive doesn’t always mean better either. As you are designing new AV systems, understanding what you should spend your money on—and where you can cut corners—can ensure you get the functionality you need without exceeding your budget.

They say it takes a village to raise a child, but a lesser known proverb says that on every successful audiovisual systems integration team is an AV design engineer. AV integration projects are rarely the work of a single person—they are a group effort. And making sure the right people are in that group is critical to your AV project. With an AV design engineer on your team, you can rest easy knowing that the planning, implementation, and installation of your AV system is in good hands.

There are as many different professional AV solutions as there are uses for them. With such a wide array of audio visual solutions available today, and as that number increases with the ongoing evolution of technology, audiovisual design and consulting services provide expert interpretation of needs and selection of AV solutions that fit the application and budget of a client.

An AV engineer in the past, had a skill set more focused on (surprise, surprise...) the audio and visual aspects of presentation and communication systems. Properly specifying components like speakers, amplifiers, audio processors, microphones, projectors and displays, were all in the wheel house of the AV engineer. Then control systems entered the space, and those engineers started to add knowledge on how to control many aspects of the system from button panels, then custom designed touch screens. These control systems ran on proprietary communication lines for a while, then they started to add standard network and IP connections. Now the AV engineer needs to understand networking, routers, switches and access points, and especially how to work with IT managers in charge of the customer network. This also comes into play when working with video conferencing codecs, like Cisco and Polycom. Next the "soft codec" was brought to the conference and meeting room arena, which is a term used to describe video conferencing applications running on "BYOD" devices, like laptops. Video conferencing services include Zoom, Skype for Business and WebEx. Now the AV engineer needs to deeply understand incorporating USB devices into their designs.