With around 76% of employees confirming their companies are now switching to hybrid work, there’s no denying the shift in workplace trends. Increasingly, companies have to find ways of unifying, engaging, and motivating their employees in a range of different environments.
The hybrid meeting room kit is one of the most powerful tools for synchronising workers and creating a consistent company culture experience. These room kits offer a simple, plug-and-play solution for fast-paced meetings and collaboration sessions.
The question is, which hybrid meeting room kit is best?
Here are some steps to help you choose the right hybrid meeting room vendor in 2022.
Step 1: Look at your Collaboration Ecosystem
How are your team members currently collaborating? A hybrid meeting room can either give you an altogether software agnostic experience so that teams can bring their meeting room software into the landscape, or it can provide a dedicated solution built around a specific service.
For instance, if you already have a heavy investment in Microsoft Teams, you might consider working with one of the many vendors in the Microsoft Teams partnership community to access a room kit with special features for Teams. This allows you to access everything from innovative Microsoft-approved hardware to one-touch buttons for launching meetings.
Alternatively, if you don’t have an existing meeting room investment, you might decide that a “Bring Your Own Meeting” software environment is more versatile for your target audience. You can even find hybrid meeting room kits that offer special features for specific solutions, like Zoom, and work with a wide range of other software packages.
Step 2: Consider Deployment Options
Once you know whether you want a vendor-focused or agnostic selection of hardware from your hybrid meeting room kit, you can think about how your vendor will give you access to this new technology. Start by considering what kind of meeting room kit you need. Are you looking for something small, simple, and plug-and-play ready for ad-hoc meetings?
Do you need a modular meeting room kit which you can expand and add more speakerphones and cameras to suit a range of conferencing room environments? Next, consider how easy it is to provision and utilise the tools available. Most hybrid room kits are intended to be as straightforward and easy to use as possible, minimising your teams’ time to prepare for conferences.
Your hybrid kit will come with just a single wire to plugin or a button that allows you to load the software you want to use instantly.
Another point to consider is how you will pay for your room kit. Do you want to buy all the technology at once, or are you looking for something more flexible, like a “meeting room as a service” solution, where you can hire your room technology and upgrade whenever you like?
Step 3: Consider Your Must-Have Features
As mentioned above, hybrid meeting room kits are increasingly evolving to suit various needs. Some companies may only need a basic set-up, featuring a webcam, a speakerphone, and enough microphones for a small number of people.
Other companies could require more advanced tools built into their room kit. For instance, if you’re going to be sharing content and hosting video calls, you will need a monitor where you can interact with your meeting software and see your colleagues. Some leaders like Microsoft can even use intelligent cameras to create the illusion of eye contact when streaming videos on monitors.
While cameras, speakerphones, monitors, and microphones are essential in any room kit, you’ll also need to consider options like:
- Whiteboards: Interactive whiteboards team members can draw on and interact within real-time can work alongside apps on smartphones for remote workers to create a more visual environment for effective teamwork.
- Sensors: Sensors in a hybrid meeting room kit can help to make your teams safer in the modern workplace. These tools detect when a particular person enters a room and automatically loads their user profile or tracks a space’s temperature levels.
- Intelligent assistants: Smart assistants and speakers allow more contactless interactions in a modern hybrid meeting room space. These tools can reduce the number of people who need to touch a device to engage in a meeting.
Step 4: Look at Customer Service
Whether you’re buying new meeting room kits for your hybrid team or investing in the latest collaborative software, a good level of customer service will always be crucial. The right provider will be able to work with you to build the ultimate kit for your specific needs, even leveraging any existing technology and tools you’ve already purchased.
A great vendor in the hybrid meeting room environment will also be able to give you the freedom to expand your meeting rooms with additional components and add-ons when your business begins to evolve. Many can even provide and implement new technology on your behalf with zero-touch provisioning – ideal for today’s workplace.
A significant level of customer service may also include training and advice on how to use new technology and a consistent commitment to excellence when supporting your various meeting rooms around the world. Your vendor could even offer smaller complementary tools alongside your room kit to empower your remote workers.
Step 5: Prioritise Innovation
Finally, it’s worth noting that we’re currently in the initial stages of the transition into a future of hybrid work. Ultimately, we’re still learning what the environment might look like for hybrid employees in the years ahead, which means we need our vendors to be as agile and flexible as our customers.
Looking for a hybrid room kit vendor with a substantial investment in innovation is an excellent way to stay ahead of the curve. The right vendor should be looking into everything from AI and IoT to 5G to help make your room kits more effective. Choose correctly, and your vendor can help you take your first strides into new technology ecosystems.
Even if you don’t need innovative solutions right now, working with a vendor prepared to leverage things like extended reality tools in collaboration and AI assistants will ensure you can evolve whenever the time is right for your brand.
