So, you’re ready for the post-pandemic hybrid working model, right – but is your office?
Eighteen months of various lockdowns have re-trained us all to work from home: on an emergency ‘make do’ basis to begin with but more recently on a somewhat more professional footing.
Kit, of course, has been as essential as a ‘can do’ attitude to maintaining mission-critical continuity.
Audio/video conferencing has gone from niche luxury to mainstream must-have with, at first, personal mobile phones or tablets being deployed by homeworkers for whom there was no instant employer-issued alternative.
Organisations quickly caught up of course: shipping devices and/or software to disparate workforces hard at it in living rooms, dining rooms, and spare bedrooms.
Now, with the end in sight and the great re-opening underway, many smart organisations large and small, are looking closely at their in-house resources.
Do they have the right audio/video equipment to respond to the challenge?
Do they have enough of it?
Is the quality sufficiently high?
And – most important of all – how do they need to reconfigure physical office space and upgrade technology to ensure the hybrid model delivers for them?
“The return to the office is preoccupying everyone and it’s really important to get it right,” says Jeff May, UK Sales Director at Swedish-based global audio and video collaboration endpoints giant Konftel, who are making it easy with a clever online guide to designing the optimum hybrid office.
“The vast majority of meetings will be conducted online so video equipment will be everywhere and everywhere will need to be video-equipped. Not just the boardroom like it used to be, but pretty much every meeting room, every hot desk section and every breakout area.
“It doesn’t necessarily mean a wholesale office rebuild. It’s possible to be cleverer with the space you have so long as you have the best possible equipment. Now is the perfect time to take stock and make some of those changes.”
Questions organisations should be asking themselves are:
What are the likely minimum and maximum sizes of online meetings that are likely to occur?
How often are those meetings likely to take place?
Will the attendees of those meetings occupy the same room or will they be elsewhere in the building? This is in addition to the common scenario of a group of people sitting down together in a meeting room and others joining from a distance over video.
Does sufficient network cabling capacity exist to accommodate any new design?
And is there a sufficiently robust power and broadband supply to make it all work?
Konftel’s interactive 3D guide features 15 examples of different room types which all feature clickable, detailed specifications of suggested audio/video set-ups that allow users to visualise how their own spaces can work better.
They include small private offices, small to large scale meeting rooms, u-shaped training rooms, breakout areas and open-plan sales floors.
Publicly accessible via Konftel’s website and available here, the guide is designed to help end-user organisations and resellers work together to produce an office environment fit for a post-pandemic era.
“The Konftel sales model is designed to help resellers and end-users alike to help them understand the kind of issues they should be considering,” says May.
“Our resellers will definitely benefit. They are all very knowledgeable about the power of video conferencing and how our products can transform the way an organisation works, but the guide is something that will help them hugely with faster engagement and progression of customer conversations.”
The guide features Konftel’s latest product developments, including the new Konftel 70 high-performance speakerphone that blends exceptional audio quality with a stylish accolade-winning design that can be used as a video meeting companion or a standalone, portable solution for huddle rooms and small-medium locations.
It forms the audio centrepiece of two new video kits – the C2070 and C5070 – which are part of Konftel’s Climate Neutral-certified portfolio and which create office conferencing convenience for small to medium rooms, ideally suited to today’s growing hybrid working trends.
In addition, the Konftel Personal Video Kit consists of the new Konftel Cam10 webcam and popular Konftel Ego speakerphone – delivering business-class performance with high levels of usability as part of a compact and portable overall design.
Alternatively, the Konftel C50800 Hybrid is a premium video collaboration solution for medium to large meeting rooms.
Delivering outstanding image and audio quality, the package combines the Konftel Cam50 PTZ conference camera and the Konftel 800 conference phone with the Konftel OCC Hub for One Cable Connection.
“The quality of all our products is outstanding and there is an option that is perfectly suited to all situations. It means customers can have the perfect combination of audio and video equipment for every room, rather than the nearest best fit,” says May.
“I would urge everyone to check out the guide and get properly prepared for what I am certain will be a new era that is loaded with opportunity.”
