Significant new headlines on remote work and COVID-19 are emerging daily. The pandemic has changed the nature of work forever, opening everyone’s eyes to both the pros and the pain points of navigating in-room and remote team collaboration.
One of the latest headlines?
“Facebook will allow employees to work remotely until July 2021”
CNBC reported that Facebook is doing what a lot of tech giants in Silicon Valley are doing - allowing employees to WFH for another year, opening offices in restricted capacities in compliance with city, state and CDC guidelines - and even providing employees with an additional $1,000 to upgrade their home offices.
Similarly, companies across the country on the East Coast with employee counts ranging from 1,000 to 27,500 are following the same path. They have no plans to return to the office in 2020.
All in an effort to curb the spread of Coronavirus, businesses are shifting to a hybrid model of work, where individuals find themselves splitting time between home and the office.
This creates new guidelines for work spaces, according to Irene Vogelsong, Associate Principal and Interior Design Director at Perkins + Will in Charlotte, NC. On a virtual event highlighting trends on the future of the workplace, Irene explained that collaboration technology will be key in bridging the gap between in-room and remote meetings.
The ever-popular open floor plan will be reimagined to accommodate health and safety concerns in order to keep employees separated to decrease virus exposure. Conference rooms and small huddle rooms will be utilized more than ever to create barriers and maintain social distancing guidelines.
But now - these in-room collaboration spaces will need to be outfitted with technology to effectively support blended teams of people working both inside and outside the physical office.
At minimum, a huddle room should include video conferencing and have the following technology:
- Shared Display
- Camera
- Speakers / Microphone
- Video Conferencing software
But note that simple video conferencing has its limitations.
Visual collaboration, or the concept of technology-enabled collaboration, on the other hand - involves multiple sources brought together into an environment that is accessible from multiple devices in multiple locations.
It is best to have a visual collaboration tool in a huddle space to connect remote teams so that they can participate just as well as in-room players during a working meeting session.
The ideal small meeting room should have all of the above, PLUS the following:
- Shared digital workspace
- Whiteboarding application
- Content sharing
- In-room AND remote access
The new hybrid workspace supports socially distanced, blended teams of in-room + remote employees.
In order to reduce distance disparity and empower all participants to be active, contributing, and productive team members, no matter where they are - the collaboration technology in small meeting rooms needs to accommodate the new era of work.
For more information on meeting rooms and Work From Anywhere solutions, visit our webinars page to register for a future webinar - or watch on-demand.