Picture this scenario: you’re standing in the middle of your office space, conversing with a remotely located colleague who is standing in front of you on a Beam Presence system.
The open office setting is busy and distracting, thanks to multiple interruptions from coworkers. Furthermore, you realize your casual chat is evolving into a dynamic brainstorming session. You decide to continue your conversation in the huddle room down the hall, where you two get down to business. You walk into the room together so that you can sit across from each other at the conference table, whip out your laptop, and when you’ve got some ideas cooking, you put them on the whiteboard. Your colleague turns to see what you’ve written on the whiteboard, and continues the discussion without missing a beat -- all from his desk in another office.
Future of Work
This is the future of work - constant, uninterrupted collaboration regardless of time or location. Much of this is now happening in huddle rooms -once seen as a workplace trend, but now a mainstay for many businesses and organizations worldwide.
In fact, it’s estimated by Wainwright Research (2015) that there are around 40-60 million meeting rooms globally, and huddle rooms represent 75% of those spaces. Over the past several years, these huddle rooms have become even more common thanks to the rise in remote work and open-office layouts, which have made spaces for small-group collaboration a virtual must.
With the vast majority of in-office meetings occurring in huddle rooms, these must be the most productive spaces in the world, right? With the right tools, they can be.
The Benefits of a Huddle Room
The key to a huddle room is not just its size, but also its flexibility. The theory is that the space should have all participants need to connect with mobile coworkers and colleagues, without having to go to great lengths to book a conference room. These intimate rooms, normally equipped with whiteboards and audio/visual equipment, can be the perfect place for impromptu meetings, brainstorming sessions, and informal presentations, which crop up multiple times daily between in-office staff and distance workers.
In addition to saving time and space, huddle rooms are also designed to be turnkey when it comes to operation. The days of needing elaborate, expensive conferencing set-ups with on-call IT personnel to set up audio/visual applications are now past, as complicated infrastructure is no longer necessary for making consistent, high-quality connections.
Maximizing Efficient Collaboration
When it comes to getting what huddle rooms were designed for -- flexibility, productivity, collaboration, and efficiency -- telepresence is a next-level addition for forward-thinking companies that want to maximize the effectiveness of their huddle rooms.
For tech-savvy Millennials in particular, whom Wainwright Research reports have been pushing managers for more video solutions in the workplace (55%) and more mobile solutions (75%) as well, promoting the use of telepresence technology for more productive, collaborative sessions between in-house staff and remote teams is crucial. While video conferencing systems are a fine first step for a huddle room, telepresence allows distance workers to very literally have a seat at the table.
Back to the scenario we described at the beginning of this post: in this and countless other situations, physical presence makes all the difference. Not to armchair quarterback your office space, but when someone calls a huddle, personal, direct, eye-to-eye contact makes all the difference.
Telepresence technology is the game changer that takes the average huddle room and kicks it up a notch to become a collaboration and productivity touchdown.