Meeting Room Design Ideas for More Effective Meetings
Are your coworkers falling asleep during meetings? Here are some meeting room design ideas to help spruce up your meeting room and have more effective meetings.
If there’s one room your business cannot do without, it’s the meeting room. According to research, the average office employee attends over 60 meetings per month, which is a lot.
However, during all your sessions, how many times have you noticed employees checking their phones or even struggling to stay awake? How many times have you heard whispers amongst the employees about how soul-sucking it was?
Still, meetings are an integral part of running a business. So, you need to find different ways to make them more effective, and it all starts with the meeting room design.
Taking too much time to plugin and set up all the devices you need for the meeting will negatively impact its results. For this reason, your meeting room needs to have all the necessary features to minimize all the redundant activities and the meetings’ effectiveness. Let’s check out some of those features, shall we?
Meet the Meeting Room Design Requirements
For your business meetings to be more effective and productive, you need to find a meeting room with the right requirements. To start with, the room need not be too sterile as it’ll bore the employees to oblivion, but it shouldn’t be too bold and distracting either. The problem with both these options is that they’re bound to be counterproductive.
When thinking about conference room design, the colors are probably your brand colors, and you may feel like you have no choice but to go along with that. However, you don’t have to stick with that. You can always go for bright colors such as yellow or light blue, and you’d be surprised at the amount of creativity you can get from a little pop of color.
Invest in High-Quality Technology
Your meeting room needs high-quality audio and video technology that’s both easy to set up and operate. Your speed connectivity should not derail your meeting presentations or conference video streams. You need to have the best possible experience so the meeting can be productive.
Respect Personal Space
When it comes to meetings, comfort is key. You may not know this, but discomfort can hamper any interaction, and no one wants to try and squeeze themselves in a conference room meant for fewer people. If your employees spend their time bumping elbows with each other and trying to figure out how to sit comfortably, then you may as well consider that meeting a failure.
The meeting room should be designed to accommodate as many people as you get together simultaneously.
Beyond that, you don’t have to follow the traditional route where boardrooms were just a formality, and members had to sit on stiff chairs around one grand table. That’s a thing of the past so derail from it and go modern.
There would be nothing wrong with making your conference room a haven for coziness and comfort. It would actually make it easier for members to get creative and come up with new ideas. Furnish the room accordingly and make it inviting enough to hold productive meetings without distractions.
Consider Having a Meeting Room Smart Board
If you don’t have a smartboard yet and are still working with the traditional blackboards, then it may be time to upgrade. These are an incredible addition to meeting room design because they make meetings convenient and makes note-taking and brainstorming so much easier.
One of the most significant advantages of a smartboard is that you can use it for video conferencing, which makes it easy to communicate with offshore clients and remote employees. Additionally, ensure the room has enough power cords for all members and all other tech accessories you need in your business.
Bring in the Outdoors
This meeting room design is one you may not think of, but you’d be surprised at how effective it is. Natural settings and greenery facilitate attention and play a major role in reducing stress. This is so effective that attention restoration therapy is a thing, and it’s used to fight depression.
Natural always has a profound effect on humans and some fresh air, and some sunlight will affect the sense of well-being and happiness of your team members. You can bring in potted plants, or go beyond that and use internal landscaping and incorporate a living wall in your meeting room.
Take Advantage of Natural Light
Set up your meeting room to bring in as much natural light as possible. The best ideas are unlikely to flow under the sterile glow of fluorescent lights because more people are likely to fall asleep. Natural lighting, however, will make the room brighter, bigger, and warmer. Stop making your team feel like they’re trapped in a setting they want to escape from and try some sunlight instead.
Of course, you need to ensure that the windows don’t become a distraction for them. You don’t want them to be looking out at what’s going on half the time you’re trying to hammer in some agendas.
Keep Your Clients in Mind
Some of the time, it’s a given that you’re going to spend time with your clients in your conference room. This makes it essential to consider their interests, as well. Your meeting room design should meet their comfort, as well.
If you value your clients, which you do, you need to find ways to impress them and keep them interested in your business. The way your working space looks like and the collaboration between you and your team members speaks volumes about your business, so make it count.
Get Creative and Boost Productivity
If you want to foster creativity and host productive meetings, then you need to incorporate some of these meeting room design ideas into your workplace. A boardroom table and some chairs are not enough anymore, and you need to go out of your way to make your meetings effective.
This is where all the great ideas are born and where clients are impressed. This means you should redesign the conference room in a way that fosters creativity and collaboration.
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