It goes without saying that aspects of your office, like carpet or other flooring materials, significant furniture elements, and decor, define the design aesthetic of your space. Two aspects of your office that impact your employees on a day-to-day basis that aren’t a part of most designers’ plans are often lighting and acoustics. While things may look and sound fine as you’re meeting in person, that can all change on video. This blog will walk you through the considerations to take in your office to account for meeting in-person and online.
Consider Your Space
In today’s world, employees are expecting different “creature comforts” than they had in-office pre-pandemic. While recreating the full tech experience of WFH isn’t possible in an office setting, an expert with AV knowledge can make the experience of being in-office more comfortable for your employees.
Especially in smaller office spaces – like huddle rooms, call booths, and smaller conference rooms – the technology of the room needs to be the guide behind the design. Due to size constraints, equipment that affects lighting or acoustics needs to be placed more strategically in these areas. Regardless of the size of your workspaces, there are three key points to consider to make every space work as optimally as possible – arrangement, orientation, and construction.
1. Arrangement
The biggest consideration for successful room arrangement is where key connectivity points like outlets, extension cords, and video connectivity are located. If your tables, chairs, and other furniture block these key connectivity points, employees – or worse, guests – will find it difficult to connect to power and the other tech in your rooms.
A key result of proper room arrangement that IT practitioners or architects may not consider is the maintenance of equipment. This is particularly true if your team is utilizing wired connections, as regular maintenance of equipment is crucial.
2. Orientation
Most conference rooms these days are turning into “mini-studios,” so the orientation of them is key for every participant to be able to be seen by the camera – as well as see the display. Depending on the purpose of the space, consider orienting your rooms to allow for multiple uses.
Multiple whiteboards, Smart TVs, or display screens will allow multiple orientations – and uses – for a single floorplan in your corporate office. Whether two, three, or ten employees are utilizing the space, they will be able to maximize the functionality of every room.
3. Construction
Construction is the obvious starting point for your office space. However, there are still measures you can take after the initial construction of your space to adjust or update certain items. For instance, lighting is critical to ensuring that meeting participants look good, not only in person but also on video. Directional lighting is a pivotal part of well-lit video meeting attendees and can be added on if only top-down lighting was initially installed. This is just one example of how construction can be done once employees are moved into the space.
If any of this sounds outside of your team’s wheelhouse (or too overwhelming to start), consider reaching out to an AV-Tech professional today!
