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. 

The COVID-19 crisis in 2020 catalyzed a massive shift toward remote work on a scale unheard of until now. December 2020 data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicated that 24% of the workforce (35.5 million people) were working from home at that time. 

Multiple surveys taken throughout 2020 have revealed that many employees would like to continue working from home when the pandemic is over. A Pew Research Center survey from December 2020 reported that 54% of people whose jobs can be performed at home would want to work from home all or most of the time after the coronavirus outbreak ends. 

These days huddle rooms are the rule rather than the exception, and for good reason. Huddle rooms help mitigate one of the main downsides of open floor plans—noise and distractions—so employees can focus on productive collaboration. Huddle rooms also provide flexibility and are often a more practical use of space than large, infrequently used conference rooms. However, huddle rooms are only as good as the audiovisual technology they are equipped with. While most huddle rooms include some standard components—a display, a camera, a microphone, a control system, as well as collaboration software and network access—the quality of those components can make or break your huddle room. And their cost can make or break your budget. 

There are plenty of times when less is more, including when you are making decisions about your conference room technology. The best meeting room technology is a simple, one-stop, unified solution. But many conference rooms today are cluttered with technologies, including conference phones, USB speaker phones, flat panel displays, laptops or desktops running meeting applications, and lots and lots of cables. Some technologies might be compatible while others aren’t, and integrating personal devices such as mobile phones is complicated at best and impossible at worst. Meetings can already be a drag—a poorly equipped meeting space only makes it worse. The Crestron Mercury was developed to address those common—and annoying—problems with the typical meeting room user experience. And Crestron’s new partnership with online meeting platform Zoom takes meeting efficiency to the next level.