Gone are the days of simple break rooms with little more than a water cooler. Today’s hybrid work environment calls for every space in your workplace to serve multiple purposes, and the break room presents a perfect example. In this blog, we will explore how you can make your break room work for you with some strategic AV tech.
The break room has come a long way from the days of the water cooler. A simple space for water, coffee and lunch breaks has become an integral part of office collaboration as more businesses switch to a hybrid work model and employees seek less-traditional spaces to meet or work. As a consequence of this change, it’s increasingly important that break rooms are equipped with the proper technology to serve a variety of needs, from video calls to in-person meetings to disseminating information.
Read on to learn which strategic pieces of AV tech you should be investing in to create a truly multifunctional break room, and how to make them work for a business of any size.
Digital Displays
Break rooms play an important role in enterprise companies who often need to communicate standardized information to employees scattered over a variety of functions and locations. Traditionally, this has been accomplished by bulletin boards — but these run the risk of being ignored or becoming overly full of paper, resulting in employees missing important announcements.
A digital display is superior for several reasons, the first being that they’re harder to ignore. The human eye is naturally drawn to movement, so a rotating display attracts attention and ups the chances that everyone will see each announcement.
If your announcements change often, a digital display saves the time, trouble and environmental impact of reprinting. Multiple break rooms can be equipped with the same screen display, meaning that you only need to adjust or add an announcement once for it to be reflected on every applicable screen.
The beauty of digital displays is that they are multi-use by nature: smaller businesses that may not need a space for announcements can still benefit from some well-placed break room screens. Perhaps they’re equipped with live TV to keep up with the news, or are used for screen-sharing during informal meetings that don’t require a conference room.
Speakers
If you have a screen in your break room that’s used for video calls, don’t forget the speakers to go with it: screen-sharing on a digital display is helpful during a call, but less so when undercut by participants in the break room struggling to hear the audio emanating from a single computer’s speaker.
Even if you don’t have a digital display, consider installing speakers anyway. Why? For enterprise companies, speakers are another way to easily communicate information across a large building or campus. Adding music or ambient noise to a break room is a great way for businesses of any size to create a sense of separation between break room and office — something that’s been proven to boost employee satisfaction and productivity.
Digital displays and speakers are just the beginning of what’s possible when creating a multi-purpose break room. For small businesses, these two elements may be enough; larger businesses or those looking to create innovative offices will want to invest in more involved AV systems. To speak with an expert and decide what’s right for you, contact us today.
