Software
Meeting redesign: Dynamic meetings may become the latest standard in offices
Since the lockdown, interactive sessions have replaced physical ones. But as workspaces open up, the need for safe meetings in offices will be a prerequisite. What is required is a modern model for seating arrangements, contactless dining and no-touch entry points. Hybrid meetings may be another option. These meetings — with a tiny in-person audience and a wider simulated audience — could potentially become a modern standard.
The important thing is to find the right venue for a meeting. Just like choosing a home, setting up a perfect meeting place can do wonders to help you achieve your goals.
Meeting Room Provider Convene, for one, launched a virtual meeting program to support unrestricted remote audience participants. It also has interactive devices, such as breakout rooms, polling stations, post-event analytics and post-video production.
Clearly, businesses need to dig closely at their conference rooms. "Many business houses have risen to the challenge and have taken a paradigm change to operate from home. That should have been a phenomenon for a long time ... rather than an actual in-person gathering, it would have been a mix of interactive and small crowds. It is therefore advisable not to have enclosed meeting rooms, but to have discussion or lounge areas where there is ventilation and no walls.
A group of people in a meeting room is not advised, because air quality can not be regulated. Open them with escape zones and lounges or transform open spaces such as an atrium or an amphitheater and use them as spaces for conversation, "says Meena Murthy Kakkar, Head of Construction and Partner of Envisage 's interior and architecture business.
India-based Zoho, a suite of online productivity tools and SaaS applications, has been working on scaling up online meetings, webinars and remote education tools to enable users to secure virtual discussions in private. Praval Singh, vice president, Zoho Corp, believes that the lockout helped instill new habits.
"There are moments when people will only come down for a chat. This is something that companies would stop going forward as far as they can because they're used to conducting successful meetings remotely. I expect a lot of distributed teams to be set up in remote locations outside major cities. While there are certainly merits in running an in-person meeting, given the situation and the costs involved, it would not be surprising to make decisions through virtual meetings, "says Singh.
Flipspaces, a multinational tech-enabled company in the design and production of industrial environments, recently unveiled Reboot environments to redesign interiors built on foundations of sanitization, physical isolation and touchless automation.
Partitions, for example, in both translucent and opaque fabrics, are combined with AI-powered surveillance via CCTV cameras to ensure social distance in meeting rooms. "The pandemic has given rise to an influence on the work community across sectors.
The work of the home idea has pushed us to turn our private rooms, including a bedroom, a living room or a patio with an contradictory combination of furniture, into offices. The major challenges are the distractions and ergonomics required for long hours, affecting the health and performance of employees, "says Imran Khan, AVP and Head of Business, Flipspaces.
