In every public organization, the conference room is a vital place. It’s the place where happenings are discussed, plans are made, and decisions are taken. You could argue that the conference room in public buildings is the brain of the whole organization.
No matter where you work, there’s no doubt that organizational meetings can be a drag. They can also seem like a colossal waste of time, and there’s data to prove it. Doodle’s 2019 State of Meetings report stated that 71% of professionals lose time every week due to disorganized or unnecessary meetings. The report also said that over $399 billion are lost every year in the US due to the same causes.
This isn’t hugely surprising. If you’ve been working for a fair amount of time, you’ve probably experienced unnecessary summonings and meetings. It wouldn’t be too far off to say that you’ve also seen a good meeting ruined by external influences. That is influences that had nothing to do with the participants of the meeting, such as equipment failure.
You’d be surprised by the role the conference room plays in the smooth flow of your meeting. Having an excellent conference room is even more important because what is discussed there concerns the well being of many people. To ensure the smooth flow of a meeting, you need to have the best possible meeting space for your conference.
How to properly set up conference rooms
Here are a few necessary pieces of equipment you’ll need to set up your conference room:
- Digital Visual Presenters: these are like modern-day projectors, except they can even project 3D objects on a screen.
- Polycom Speakerphone: This equipment is responsible for moderating your voice spy that, even if the other participants are online, they can hear and understand what is said. This is even more important when discussing business with foreigners.
- Video conferencing system: This technology is an absolute must for any modern company. Video conferencing saves companies millions every day and is why some people can afford to work remotely.
- A SMART Board: While this “SMART” part of this can be excluded, somewhere to make presentations is sorely needed, and technology like the SMART Board can provide that optimally. Learn more about SMART Boards here.
Now that we’ve identified four must-have tools for a conference room in a public building, here are some tips for running the meetings successfully.
- Make the technology uniform across all conference rooms. This will allow staff to become familiar with it and, therefore, eventually operate it effortlessly.
- Invest in meeting room analytics to learn how, when, and why your meeting rooms are being used. This may give you better insight and help you improve your meetings.
- Invest in scheduling software to organize meetings and conference rooms.
- Do test runs with the equipment tight before meetings.
- Connect a device that’ll summon technical support right to the conference room in case of an emergency.
- Have backup equipment for tools that are used a lot.
- First time designing a conference room? Look for some inspiration on Pinterest.
Conclusion
While you can’t plan for every single situation, you can be prepared for the worst. The conference room in public buildings is the brain of the organization, and like the actual organ, you have to take care of to keep it sharp.