Inclusive meetings from home and at the office

“Nobody works five days a week at the office anymore; people work at home for five days.” If someone brought this up for discussion more than two years ago, they’d still be discussing it. Same goes for us. As a result of the pandemic, the concept of how we work has been turned on its head. Fortunately, there’s a better ‘hybrid’ balance these days: people combine working at home with working at the office. This raises the question: do meeting rooms still fit in this new way of working? Currently, only 6% of office meeting rooms enable participants from home to join the meeting as equals.¹ Meeting rooms lag behind reality. And the consequences are major.  

Experience 

We hold quite a few meetings here in the Netherlands. Our work is becoming more complex and knowledge is spread across the organization. On average, knowledge workers are members of 10 virtual teams. But how do you meet when, say, 4 people physically work in the office and 5 co-workers from another location need to attend the same meeting? We’ve all experienced what goes wrong. Participants can’t hear one another well, and you can’t see the other participants when a screen is shared. Most meetings start 10 minutes late due to tech issues. The result: people simply drop out due to a lack of involvement and interaction. Can you blame them?

Hybrid meeting 

With Teams Rooms, the meeting room participates in the meeting. Just like a person. The meeting experience is then inclusive and scalable. Everyone truly participates, with authentic contact, no matter where they are, on equal footing. Teams Rooms isn’t a new technology. What’s new is that organizations that embrace hybrid work can equip all their meeting rooms with this. Additionally, we’ve added various new functionalities, aimed at stimulating user interaction. Everything is simple to use. Moving, intelligent cameras. Speech-to-text with voice recognition. Videos and presentations can be shared while participant responses are recorded. Facial recognition and attribution when someone speaks … And these are just a few of the smart features that make meetings easier and more effective. Everyone on the same page, every vote counts, regardless of where the co-worker is when they participate. Who knows, eventually, Teams Rooms may even lead to fewer meetings.  

Integrated approach 

With Teams Rooms, meetings are easier than ever before. There’s a solution for every type of meeting room. From small to large. From a classic conference set up to a quick brainstorming session. Teams Rooms brings everyone together regardless of the room or location. Facilitating this is not only the responsibility of the IT department. It doesn’t just fall under the Human Resources or Facility Services policy. It’s about these departments coming together. Only then can an organization properly organize hybrid work and help everyone profit from the benefits.  

Experience hybrid meetings for yourself  

At our Schiphol Office, we bring you into the world of hybrid working. We begin in our Immersive Suite, a unique 360-degree experience. After that you participate in several hybrid meetings powered by Teams Rooms. Here, you discover for yourself how technology breaks down barriers that stand in the way of hybrid meetings. And that equal contact again leads to 1+1=3. We wrap it up with a specific product explanation. Plenty of room is left for discussion. Like we said, making hybrid meetings possible takes teamwork. Do you work in IT? Bring a colleague from Human Resources or Facility Services or ask them to bring you. Prefer Dutch? Mind the session languages.

Don’t wait too long 

During this 2.5-hour session, we observe all the most recent covid rules. For this reason, we can only offer 8 places at a time per session. Be quick, because full is full. Didn’t get a place? We’ll put you on a waiting list. The sessions are given by partners in collaboration with Microsoft. Sign up now and let us know your preferred date and time. We’ll then send you an invite. 

Questions about the hybrid meeting Experience? Ask them here.
Want to read more? Download this guide on how to bring Teams to meeting rooms.

Microsoft gives partners the opportunity to support organizations when they start working with hybrid meetings. For example think of (partly) Microsoft funded Impact Analysis, installation of the first two meeting rooms, a pilot project, or discount on Teams Room licenses. Partner who give the sessions are part of Microsoft’s Meeting Room Partner Program (MRPP) and can qualify if your organization is eligible for funding. Like to know more about the partners? Click on the name to see what they’re all about: Communicativ, Kinly , KPN, Wortell.

¹ State of the Global Video Conferencing Device Market, Forecast to 2025. Frost & Sullivan. 2021