The Huddle Room has traditionally been the small, insignificant space for employees to have quick meetings. Small wonder that of the estimated 32.4 million huddle rooms globally, and less than 2 percent have video conferencing capabilities.
However, recently, the recent trend in work culture has shifted towards preference for Huddle rooms over larger and more expensive set ups in large conference rooms. Huddle rooms support the evolution of the modern workplace for quick, easy and effective collaboration especially with remote offices and employees on the move.
A huddle space/room is a small meeting room that typically accommodates 6 or 3 designed with prime purpose to conduct ad hoc or unplanned meetings. Today, the huddle room provides for internal and external collaboration. This has helped companies save millions in terms of travel and other expenses incurred while working across geographies.
So what are the components of a modern Huddle Rooms?
For quick and effective collaboration, the huddle room has to have equipment that makes it easy to use at the same time provide multiple services - audio, wireless content sharing, video conferencing, and white boards and cloud services.
The two major components one needs to bring into the Huddle Room in order to make the meeting effective are:
- Displays. The first thing that anyone notices when walking into the conference room is the display screen. As this forms the visual part of the conference room and it forms one of the collaboration tools. As the display allows you to interact with your colleagues in other locations, view and share presentations from any device such as laptops, tablets and other smart phones.
- Video Conference. It acts a connecting link for video display to allow multiple parties to call simultaneously. For those people who prefer working face-to-face meeting with colleagues, video conferencing is the best option in the digital era. Some of the systems can even connect video from multiple platforms, giving your team greater flexibility. This allows connect call into the conference room system from Zoom, Skype for Business or other cloud-based providers.
- Audio Systems. One of the important components is establishing an audio system in the huddle rooms. The ultimate goal is to provide exceptional audio clarity. Microphones and speakers form an important component in the small conference room. Based on how you intend to use the room and the features of the space, select the right mix of microphones and speakers. The choice of microphones and speakers will have a significant impact on the overall conferencing experience. The right set-up improves the audio experience in the conference.
- Add room acoustics. Small spaces have acoustical challenges than larger spaces. Small rooms suffer from echoes. If the room is not properly designed with proper acoustical treatment, participants in the far-end will have difficulty in hearing what is being said. Windows and disturbance from outside the Huddle Room can be eliminated with a little thought and careful selection of interior scapes.
Why Enterprises require Huddle Rooms?
The modern huddle room technology makes it possible for remote workers to collaborate with their teams more efficiently. The benefits of huddle rooms are not just restricted to one, while it has enabled the enterprises to exercise the following:
- Spontaneous and quick interactions – When work is carried in team in a small conference room, it leads to quick discussions and arrival of decisions. As even co-workers from different locations can be connected in one single place and huddle room is ideal for such unplanned meetings for quick and more informal interactions.
- Collaborate with geographically dispersed employees – Today, most of the companies have geographically dispersed employees. This creates a need for workspaces where workers can interact with co-workers and business partners from different parts of the globe. As huddle room is ideal for long distance communication and collaboration. Huddle room acts as a hub for employees and key-decision makers from different geographical locations.
- Include mobile technologies – Growth in persistent networking has expanded mobile technologies, ranging from personal computers and tablets to smart phones and newer categories such as wearables. As with these wireless devices, it enables workers to take advantage of flexible work locations and time with huddle rooms.
- Go paperless with collaboration software – Huddle rooms have facilitated offices to become paperless with collaboration software. Now it has become easier to communicate and share information from one platform to another. Technologies have aided employees to access shared resources and information from their screens, rather than relying on physical presence to share hard copies.
What is the future of Huddle Rooms?
Due to the dynamic nature of the workplace, huddle rooms play a significant role for the enterprises to move ahead compared with their competitors. Recently, organizations have started to recognize the value and need for smaller meeting spaces.
Wainhouse Research (WR) predicts a new growth in huddle-room solutions to hit the market in the near future. While there are existing solutions that address some huddle room requirements, WR is aware of many solutions that are soon to be released which will provide advanced collaboration and presentation capabilities, with increased quality of experience.
Furthermore, WR expects that some huddle room solutions will be available for purchase from AV System Integrators only, and designed for installation by the end-user.
Summary
Since decades, collaboration technology has just been limited to larger, integrated, and expensive meeting rooms. While, over the coming years, cutting-edge audio-visual and collaboration products and services will make their way into the millions of existing small/huddle rooms. These rooms will provide a user experience, coupled centralized management. With increased need for high quality audio, video and content sharing for meetings the employees, huddle rooms have inspired to collaborate effectively and efficiently.