What is a Huddle Room? How to redesign your office space for Hybrid Work?
What is the first thing that strikes your mind when you think of a “conference room”? It is designed to fit a large group of attendants, with big digital screens and fixed with permanent infrastructure. It’s intended for huge gatherings, whether held in person or video conference. But it is the thing of the past.
Today’s “conference rooms” are evolving to meet the demands of a changing work environment. Huge tables and big spaces are out, and huddle rooms are in.
Suppose the 20th century was the age of Information technology. In that case, the 21st is quickly becoming the age of Innovation—one in which collaboration reigns supreme—and businesses must provide real time and offline communications to all employees.
The rise of Huddle Rooms
The open office floor design is one of the critical themes fueling the huddle room revolution. Many firms are now choosing fewer standalone offices in favor of more collaborative working environments that encourage communication and productivity. According to Frost & Sullivan’s latest market trends, huddle rooms are expected to replace over 70% of all conference rooms by 2022.
Using the tools to promote meaningful collaboration, allowing people to work together rather than just communicate or share information truly. Don’t be tricked: there’s a difference between allowing people to “meet” virtually and making it intuitive and straightforward for them to collaborate across time and location. This necessitates video, which will enable participants to make eye contact, assess facial expressions and body language, and high-quality audio, which allows everyone to be heard. Most efficient for collaboration when utilized by small groups—anywhere from 2 to 8 people—working together to develop a new company idea, start a marketing campaign, or build an innovative product or service. According to Wainhouse Research’s recent State of the State report on Enterprise Video Conferencing, 50 million huddle rooms exist worldwide.
What are huddle rooms?
Huddle rooms and spaces are tiny meeting areas carefully designed to allow individuals to meet quickly and effortlessly. The audio, video, and display systems in these small conference rooms are updated. Huddle spaces also make it easier to collaborate and converse by eliminating the need to reserve a room.
Huddle rooms are for informal, peer-to-peer communication venues. These are becoming a popular addition to modern working spaces, as they are ideal for brainstorming or catching up with coworkers. A huddle space can also be transformed into a powerful workstation for a small team when equipped with the right equipment.
To have a smoother transformational journey from traditional conference room to huddle room, we can help you with our world-class collaboration solutions. Explore our Bird AI’s exceptional products designed exclusively to meet the present-day collaboration needs and increase productivity at your workplace. Our products can help you establish sophisticated huddle rooms.
Huddle Rooms: How are they different?
- Groups of two to five people often use Huddle places.
- Do you need to have a brief informal talk with your coworkers? You can drop in and out of huddle rooms as required. One of the most important factors is the lack of scheduling constraints.
- Huddle rooms can cater to all the needs of employees to attain any business goal with effective communication. They’re furnished with various furniture, equipment, and technology to meet these needs.
- It’s all about improvised collaboration. Huddle rooms allow for the free-flowing, collaborative exchange of information.
How to use huddle rooms effectively?
1. Team Project meetings
A small conference room will make everyone feel like they’re in the same room, encouraging communication and collaboration. Completing team projects, receiving project updates, and sharing papers will be as simple as they are in real life.
2. Brainstorming sessions
Huddle rooms were created to promote effective brainstorming sessions. Consider an interactive whiteboard to add and see ideas by others immediately. Make sure you’ve got enough space to co annotate on the same document effortlessly.
3. Client Meetings
Allow clients to join you in a huddle room video conference to save costs on the trip. This offers the extra benefits, allows you (and, more significantly, your clients) to communicate with them whenever you (and, more importantly, they) need to.
4. One-to-One meetings
Huddle rooms provide a private, comfortable setting for scheduled or impromptu one-on-one discussions. You can communicate with distant employees more quickly and easily.
5. Stand-up meetings
Small teams might use a huddle room to have daily or weekly stand-up meetings. Your stand-up meeting will move quickly and cover the main topics so you can get back to your day, thanks to huddle room technology and connectivity.
Advantages of Huddle Rooms
1. Space utilization
Do you have any small rooms in your office that aren’t being used for anything? If you answered yes, you should think about setting up a huddle room. One of the most significant advantages of huddle rooms is that they use often-overlooked space. Even if you make use of the limited space, you may not be getting the most out of it. If you’re not taking advantage of all of your office’s available space, it’s time to redesign it and turn it into a huddle area.
2. Mobility
When, where, and how we work has all been revolutionized by mobile technology. Fewer employees are at the office full-time due to more employees traveling or working remotely. This leaves expensive office space unoccupied. Employees frequently prefer their gadgets to a desk-bound business PC in the office. The huddle room is a cost-effective and productivity-enhancing option. When there are a lot of remote and traveling workers in the building, huddle rooms fill in for the offices that aren‘t being used.
Creating huddle rooms in the workplace, contrary to popular belief, is proactive prioritization of your larger conference rooms. You not only give an area that is ideal for small work sessions and meetings, but you also make better use of your larger spaces. Bye-bye, unused space and vacant chairs!
4. Inclusion of all employees
Huddle rooms make it easier for team members to collaborate and communicate while making the experience feel more personal. Although conference rooms are ideal for video conferencing with big groups, they can make remote workers feel forgotten and excluded. Huddle rooms tackle this problem by allowing for rapid and easy face-to-face communication, allowing everyone to have a life-size presence.
5. No reservation needed
Huddle rooms, as previously stated, do not require prior reservations (unless your company chooses to do otherwise). Employees appreciate this feature since it eliminates the need to stop what they’re doing to plan meetings.
6. Inexpensive
You might be curious about the costs of converting your space into a huddle room. Fortunately, huddle rooms are low-cost to set up, making them suitable for both large and small businesses. Huddle room equipment is significantly less expensive than a large conference room.
Technology requirements of huddle rooms
Huddle rooms should have a distinct design and feel from traditional meeting rooms. Furthermore, their design should be customized to each company’s requirements. It can also vary from one company to the next. Huddle spaces can be classified as formal or informal. Some huddle rooms are furnished with sofas and beanbag chairs and exude a relaxed atmosphere conducive to brainstorming. With high tables and stools, some may evoke a café-style discourse. Some will have standard conference tables, seats, and whiteboards that have been scaled down. At best, there appears to be agreement on a few arrangements covering all possibilities. Here are four different types of huddle rooms that you’ll see at companies adopting modern workplace design. These include simple, basic, mid-level, and high-end huddle rooms or huddle spaces.
1. Simple Huddle rooms
Collaborative spaces, at the other extreme of the spectrum, don’t even have a room. By defining an area within a space, simple huddle rooms can be created. They can be determined by furniture arranged in groups to allow informal talks. Workers are welcome to stop by for a chat. They could also use their mobile devices to start a video chat or collaborate using an app. A modest table, a few chairs, and (rarely) a speaker and microphones are typical furnishings and equipment.
Collaborative spaces, at the other extreme of the spectrum, don’t even have a room. By defining an area within a space, simple huddle rooms can be created. They can be determined by furniture arranged in groups to allow informal talks. Workers are welcome to stop by for a chat. They could also use their mobile devices to start a video chat or collaborate using an app. A modest table, a few chairs, and (rarely) a speaker and microphones are typical furnishings and equipment.
3. Mid-level Huddle Rooms
Many businesses outfit huddle rooms with additional technology to improve closed-door cooperation. Speakers and microphones can be mounted on the ceiling or the table, headsets, and a video conferencing camera. A telephone and network connectivity may be available in these rooms. They could also use an LED display or an interactive display/projector to expand the viewing area. Users may be given technology to stream content from their devices.
4. High-end Huddle Rooms
Huddle rooms with extensive equipment are the exception rather than the rule. These spaces have the potential to become mini-boardrooms. This could result in them losing the immediacy that makes huddle rooms such effective collaborative environments. However, according to AV researchers, high-end huddle rooms offer instruments to enable a wide range of collaborative operations. These enhanced rooms expand on the capabilities of traditional huddle rooms. Multiple wall-mounted digital monitors or built-in video conferencing devices may be include
5. No reservation needed
Huddle rooms, as previously stated, do not require prior reservations (unless your company chooses to do otherwise). Employees appreciate this feature since it eliminates the need to stop what they’re doing to plan meetings.
6. Inexpensive
You might be curious about the costs of converting your space into a huddle room. Fortunately, huddle rooms are low-cost to set up, making them suitable for both large and small businesses. Huddle room equipment is significantly less expensive than a large conference room.
Collaboration software makes multiscreen sharing possible, and touchscreen displays are sometimes available. Free-standing telepresence robots or telepresence-enabled tablets or desktop screens may also be available in more advanced rooms. Apps for room scheduling are available from some businesses. These are made to be used by groups of people working on long-term projects. By avoiding the need to remove work at the end of one day and then set up again the next, reserve space saves time and improves efficiency.
Technology requirements of huddle rooms
1. Standalone mode
Huddle rooms are small spaces; if multiple gadgets set up the video conferencing equipment, you can see the wires hanging and lying all over the place may disturb the ambiance. So, choose a device that may help you maintain the place well. It is always simplicity that leads to sophistication. A standalone device can eliminate the awkwardness of looking for cables and slots to connect all necessary equipment to create the ideal web conferencing arrangement suitable for Huddle Rooms. Because of the accessories attached to work, most video conferencing equipment fail to give their most outstanding quality and purpose. Bird AI engineers are problem solvers who use their inventive inventions to improve the performance of the products.
2. Intelligent Video Conferencing System
Video conferencing is a significant trend in today’s workplace since it allows team members from all over the world to speak face-to-face without ever leaving their desks. You can’t afford to miss out on this opportunity if you’re thinking about installing a huddle room in your office. Video conferencing companies have begun to build systems specifically designed for huddle rooms and tiny conference rooms, making it simple for businesses to equip their huddle rooms with all of the benefits of video conferencing.
When video conversations aren’t required, you’ll also need a conference phone and speakers with crystal-clear audio, so no one has to strain to hear or participate in the conversation. Look for technology that is simple to use and fulfills your reliability standards.
3. Interactive Display
Engagement with digital information has been permanently revolutionized with devices like smartphones and tablets. The fashionable and same comfort of touch throughout your conference calls can make the impromptu calls more interesting. With a natural touch interface, you enjoy the sensation of smooth and effortless operation.
Adding the best technology to your huddle room is very crucial. Because no one wants to make a group around a laptop, you’ll need larger monitors. It’s critical to purchase a device with screen-sharing features. Keep the size between 42″ and 50″ in mind. You don’t need the large equipment you’re used to because this is a little space. When you’ve finished with your display, try to keep it as close to eye level as possible.
With a smart display in your conference room, you can put an end to your delays and battles to start the meeting. Say goodbye to the little touch-control pads, mouse, and keyboard arrangement on the conference table, and instead, start the meeting with a few taps on the screen.
4. Bring your own device
The BYOD in Huddle Room System is the ideal solution for time-sensitive, close-quartered, and creative conferencing. With a location intended for personal teamwork and communication for spur-of-the-moment meeting demands, generate constructive ideas and feedback.
Consider a wireless meeting room where you don’t need to bring your laptop. Simply bring your device to the meeting and begin wirelessly sharing presentations on the big screen. Best of all, wireless presentation is as simple as plugging in a device.
5. Content collaboration
The combination of a video conferencing service and innovative presentation tools is great. For creative presentations, the employees will never need to use another application. Using the whiteboard, sticky notes, colorful markers, and interactive display to encourage interest. The ability to co-annotate and co-create can result in the best collaboration. Creative tools can aid in developing client relationships and the synergy of team members, resulting in increased productivity.
Taking collective communication and conferencing to the next level and releasing maximum creativity necessitates using all collaborative equipment available. This features intuitive touch displays that allow for the most efficient exchange of ideas while also removing virtually all barriers to collaboration across locations.
6. Screen Sharing
Casting the screens will give a perfect wireless and touchless meeting experience. The remote participants in the small teams can project their screens and ideate together with all the participants. The comparative analysis and collaboration between the various teams in the hybrid workspaces can be quickly established. Every participant can scribble on the screen and share their flowing ideas effortlessly. This gives the comparative ideation process more scope and instantly checks the work progress.
Make Bird AI part of your workspace transformation
Bird AI is a path-breaking technology to transform communication and collaboration in the changing workspaces. Bird AI has a suite of devices that are suitable for Huddle Space. Bird Hub is one such device that makes your huddle room tech-equipped.
Bird Hub gives you wings to fulfill all the needs of Huddle rooms. It has built-in computing ability, SuperHD 120° ultra wide-angel camera, and active noise canceling mic array. Above all, it has all the tools required for the collaboration, and it can turn the existing TV/display unit into an interactive touch panel where you can co annotate for the best ideation process. You can launch meetings with a few taps on the screen, avoiding the usage of touchpad controllers, mouse, or keyboard. It allows up to nine screens to share on display.
Are you ready for equipping Huddle Space?
A huddle room is one of your greatest options if you’ve been considering moving away from a standard conference room. However, to give your staff the functionality and flexibility of a hybrid workspace, you’ll need the correct video conferencing solution.
Meetings are essential for a company’s productivity. And meeting room technology must function smoothly at all times. Our goal at Bird AI is to make collaboration simple. When it comes to huddle space technology, Bird AI can supply the software, hardware, support, and end-user training and adoption services required to ensure a high-quality user experience while minimizing the workload on IT teams.
Bird AI can provide a single-vendor solution that links all devices and apps by taking a platform-agnostic approach to software and hardware. Bird AI supports a new way of working that combines unified collaboration with a single communication platform. Try it for yourself and discover how it can turn any huddle or stuffy conference room into a smart meeting room!
