1. Introduction

The Hybrid working model is probably the next normalcy of the working world. 86% of the companies have shifted to the hybrid working model post-COVID.
A hybrid model allows employees to work from wherever and whenever they are productive. Building better teams, giving them engaging video conferencing experiences, and establishing a collaborative work environment is the major challenge for the management.
The Hybrid meeting has become the emerging way employees connect. Let us understand what the hybrid meeting is.The meeting where there are remote and in-office employees. 71% of companies expect hybrid meetings are more common in the future. At least one employee would attend meetings remotely.
Are companies ready to embrace the changes happening in the working world? The answer is not yet. article addresses the challenges and gives you a complete picture and solution through checklists to set up the meeting room.

2. Different Types of Meetings

A face-to-face meeting is the most typical way of meeting. All the participants would be present at the venue and contribute their ideas orally. These meetings are organized in dedicated spaces like conference rooms or cabins.The meeting rooms are equipped with whiteboards to facilitate the co-creation process. The technological device used to be a projector or interactive flat panel to visualize and assess the progress of the project in the meeting room.

A virtual meeting is an entirely online process. All the attendees virtually show their presence. Every individual attending the meeting must possess a video conferencing set up with a typical video conferencing software. The facilitator would take care of the collaboration possibilities among the participants.

A hybrid meeting is a blend of face-to-face and virtual meetings. 98% of meetings comprise at least one participant attending the meet virtually. These meetings have become the most common phenomenon post-pandemic throughout the world. The companies’ management and IT teams are adapting to the new normalcy. 67% of companies state that technology is a significant concern to ensure a smooth experience. Getting the right technology and reshaping the office spaces that fit the hybrid meeting has become the primary aim of the company’s management to boost productivity.

3. Changes, Hybrid Meeting bring to Meeting Rooms.

It is challenging to metamorphose the office space according to the new needs of the hybrid working model. Let us understand the challenges we face while setting up the hybrid meeting rooms.

3.1 Major Challenges during the Hybrid meeting

1. Inclusivity of remote employees/collaboration equity
During meetings, feeling left out or invisible is a typical concern among remote workers, especially in-office discussions when they can observe their co-workers engaging effortlessly and exchanging laughs. It may be challenging to produce a natural, democratic flow to discourse in such a dynamic, ensuring that everyone speaks and no one has a monopoly. Many remote employees are uncomfortable placing themselves forward to dominate the audio and silence others’ mics because of video conferencing software.

2. Participation and engagement
For a remote attendee, getting floor time might be difficult, prompting many conference attendees to merely observe the meeting as quiet spectators. When in-office co-workers join via a shared computer, they may feel less compelled to engage since they don’t have their camera or control over their microphone. Because essential face clues are eliminated, and it might be difficult to understand who in the office is speaking, the lack of video can restrict comprehension among distant participants.

3. Meeting quality/communication clarity
We’ve all experienced how aggravating virtual calls can be. Weak connections or software faults may quickly degrade the quality and flow of meetings. Unless you speak forcefully and instantly and stick to your phrase, that of another participant may muffle your microphone. Because of the unnatural delay in speaking via tools like Zoom, the flow of communication is frequently stilted, making it all too easy for people to be stopped and spoken over. Because of these concerns, it’s all too simple for in-office groups to take control of the meeting.

4. Affordability
Many organizations have included costs of redesigning the office spaces in their budgets. To increase interactivity and collaboration among the hybrid teams, management must incorporate the meeting spaces with cutting-edge technology. Establishing the meeting rooms makes a costly affair for the companies. So, having affordable technology is a limitation for organizations to transform themselves according to the changing times.

5. Accessibility
The new technology introduced may not be accessible to all the users in the office. It may not be user-friendly and increase the dependency on IT teams. Choosing the technology that is easy to install and maintain poses a challenge to the IT team. The equipment may demand user-specific training to use.

Based on the above challenges, companies have to take the necessary steps to mitigate them. Here are some key aspects to address: to solve the issues that may arise during a hybrid meeting.
Companies must consider supporting meetings and collaboration with a mix of in-person and remote employees as hybrid workplaces gain a foothold. Meeting rooms must be redesigned and equipped with technology to facilitate hybrid meetings more smoothly and efficiently. The ways we meet are changing rapidly with a transforming work culture that demands increasing collaboration. Organizations are creating a variety of collaborative meeting spaces to suit these developments. Many of these are supplanting the typical conference room.

3.2 Hybrid Meeting Room Technology and Environment

It will no longer be enough to have a table, seats, and a speakerphone in the center of the table. The first thing that teams should consider is how they will convene and what kind of work will be required during meetings. Emerging technology solutions provide more advanced collaboration alternatives for hybrid teams.

The new conference room setup includes high-quality video and audio to simulate hybrid team members in the same space. Large touchscreens, high-quality cameras, and microphones are common features on systems. Even if meeting attendees are on the screen, software platforms synchronize their backgrounds to avoid distractions and make it appear as though everyone is in the same room. Touchscreens make it possible to use the device as a whiteboard when screen-sharing, making cooperation easier. Participants may email and share files, talk, and use other capabilities depending on the software solution or collaboration platform used—perhaps Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, etc.

3.3 Redesigning the office spaces

About of companies are transforming the office space by reducing meeting room size three quarters to increase the flexibility in work. These conditions are because of the ever-lasting impact of COVID on working culture. The frequency of meetings has increased as more than half of the workforce is present remotely. The number of meeting rooms has risen because of the surge in virtual collaboration. To address all the meeting needs of the employees, companies need to have the following meeting spaces in the office as 37% of the time in a week employees spend in meetings.

Focus Rooms: For private phone conversations, one-to-one meetings, conference meetings, and creative activities that require some privacy. There is no need to make a reservation for these rooms in advance.

Huddle Spaces:For brainstorming, video conferencing, or whiteboarding in groups of 3 to 4. There is no need to make a reservation for these rooms in advance.

Small/Medium Meeting Rooms:For more formal meetings. Must be booked in advance.

4. Device & software for hybrid meetings

Due to the ever-lasting impact of COVID on working culture, the frequency of meetings has increased as more than half of the workforce is present remotely. The number of meeting rooms has risen because of the surge in virtual collaboration. To address all the meeting needs of the employees, companies need to have the following meeting spaces in the office as 37% of the time in a week employees spend in meetings.

01. Display: The size and kind of display screen required are determined mainly by the room’s size and the number of attendees. A single 4K television may serve hybrid workspaces.

02. A high-resolution webcam: Quality video conferencing causes the visibility of details such as facial emotions and body language. Meetings lose the realism of real-life, face-to-face encounters if subtleties like these are missed.

03. Microphone: A great audio capturing mechanism is required to air the perfect voice of the speaker, and it must have the feature of noise cancelation. The microphone you choose must capture the voice from long distances if it is the bigger meeting room.

04. Video conferencing software: Video conferencing software like Teams, Google Meet, Zoom, etc., should be installed on the device. Ensure all the employees are with the same application so that no one misses the meeting.

05. Dedicated PC: If your computer does not have a fast enough processor, it will reduce the quality of your audio and video to make the best possible call for your system’s characteristics. Your computer should have at least 2 GB of RAM and a quadcore CPU for contemporary video conferencing.

06. Collaboration software: A software application that has all the tools that a team could require for the co-creation and ideation process.

07. Room booking software: A software that prevents the clash of timings and allows the facilitators to schedule the meeting prior.

08. Project management software: When teams review a project’s road map together in project management software like Trello, Wrike, or Asana, that helps provide a single platform for alerts, material, and project needs boost productivity.

09. Casting Dongle: The device is helpful to cast any small 09 screens to a huge display panel with Full HD quality wirelessly.

10. Touch Screen device: To contribute and engage in the meeting to the fullest by annotating simultaneously with other participants.

5. Best practices

1. Do check working condition of all the meeting components.
2. Every meeting should have a purpose.
3. Appropriate virtual locations are required.
4. Prepare an agenda ahead of time.
5. Choose a moderator in advance.
6. Use interactive and collaborative tools.
7. Meetings should begin on time.
8. Facilitate an inclusive environment.
9. Set a time restriction for how long each person can speak.
10. Prepare ahead of time to collaborate.

How can Bird Hub help you to setup a Hybrid Meeting Space Instantly?

COVID has made it inevitable for companies to accept the real scenario of a hybrid workplace. The companies are restyling their office spaces to make them suitable for the changing conditions. The new compact office spaces need something revolutionary and feature-packed compact devices. The aim in choosing the device must be to increase engagement, interactivity, and collaboration among hybrid teams.

Bird AI has engineered the powerful AI-powered all-in-one video conferencing device to boost the productivity of the hybrid teams. Bird Hub is incorporated with the basic video conferencing and high-end super-fast computing capabilities.

The Simplest Hybrid Meeting Solution

The camera and microphone incorporated in Bird Hub make it a perfect fit for any kind of meeting space. It just works with a simple plug-and-play USB mode. It is flexible and goes with the display size of any size, starting from 32’’ to 75’’. It won’t lock you for any single application.
Users can launch meetings instantly with a single tap on the screen. It is the most affordable, interactive, and collaborative video conferencing device.

Industry’s 1st Touch Conferencing solution

Convert any TV/Monitor into an interactive touch device just by installing Bird Hub. The precision and accuracy of the super capacitive stylus are superior compared to any other device in the industry. Users can have a lag-free and real-time writing experience. It offers the lowest latency while writing on the screen.

Video Conferencing System

Bird Hub has a super HD 3K camera which is intelligent to make a perfect frame of the entire meeting room, and it works seamlessly with the audio capturing system to frame the speaker. The ambient light sensor with the device adjusts our brightness and shows the participants more beautifully. The microphone cancels the noise within the acoustic curtain that it made around the meeting room and captures the crystal-clear audio.

Collaborative System

The collaborative tools with the Bird Hub are unparallel. It has everything for your hybrid teams creative tools like sticky notes, handwriting recognition, templates for presentations, mind maps, etc., focus tools like timer, spotlight, etc. And presentation tools like screen mirroring, highlighter, multi-color sketches. It is simple to share. You are just a QR code scan away. The cloud-based online whiteboarding software allows remote employees to join the board simultaneously. All the team members can co-annotate and co-ideate in the same document.

Powerful Computing System

The Bird Hub has a hexacore ARM processor with a built-in neural engine that can perform AI operations at a faster pace. It offers a quick bootup time-saving time for users and increasing productivity. Users can download their favourite applications to launch the meetings without connecting to any external laptop. Bird Hub allows users to launch meetings from their favorite video conferencing platforms like ZOOM, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, etc. The OTA updates to the system’s software keep it future-ready and updated.

Bird Hub is a Standalone device with all requirements to carry out the hybrid meeting effectively and effortlessly. It mitigates all the possible challenges during hybrid meetings, such as inclusivity, engagement, collaboration, affordability, and accessibility.

Switch to Hybrid Working with Bird Hub