From wowing clients to creative workshop sessions and vital discussions, the meeting room has long been a key component to the success of a business. Meeting rooms need to look good and deliver versatile functionality. They must be tailored to a business’s operations and equipped to keep up with the fast-paced and ever-changing business world.
Whether it’s a small startup or a large corporation, meetings are essential for communication, decision-making and collaboration. However, not all meeting rooms were created equal. They need to inspire a business’s workforce and provide an ideal oasis to meet deadlines and deliver success.
Designed with care and understanding, meeting rooms are powerful assets in the day-to-day achievements of a business. Changes don’t always have to be drastic either; here’s how measured and effective changes can redefine your meeting room as a hub for inspiration, creativity, and success.
The wow factor
When showing a potential client around your business, the meeting room is typically the last stop on the tour. Whether it’s being utilised for interviewing your next generation of talent, sculpting decisive strategies, or scripting the direction of its future, meeting rooms are where crucial, business-altering conversations are held and where key actions are agreed upon. As such, the space should be an extension of the organisation’s brand personality, values, and culture.
The form that the wow factor takes is entirely dependent on the unique message a business wants to convey. It must reflect the business, the services it offers and the ethos underpinning its messaging.
Meeting rooms are the perfect venue for showcasing a business’s commitment to sustainability, with statement lighting interweaved with biophilia just one creative way of making a bold first impression. For others, simple yet sophisticated designs can help give off a professional, dependable feel. One business might need seamlessly integrated, plug-and-play presentation facilities to elevate its day-to-day. For another, its meeting room must remain free of technology and distractions, allowing for concentrated conversations in a tailored environment. Personalisation and purpose are key here; a meeting room needs to manifest what a business is at its core and work to visually, and functionally mirror that.
Branding: Subtle or bold?
Incorporating branding into the design, whether that be subtle or bold can yield the benefits of affirming brand identity and reminding employees why they are proud to be part of the business.
That can mean having splashes of company colours across elements of furniture, such as seat covers. Or perhaps it’s incorporating an element of the company logo into the manifestations of glass partition walls. These nuances help affirm brand identity, making for a sleek finish.
In other cases, bigger is better. Feature walls are a common touch where the scheme is kept clean and simple, allowing one wall to draw your attention. Whether it’s adorned with elegant yet earthy natural woods, bright company colours or a statement logo mounted onto the wall, they’re a great way of adding a brazen touch to an otherwise streamlined design.
Choosing the right space
The success of the meeting room isn’t only defined by its visual design. Choosing the right space for it within a workspace scheme is crucial. A space with low natural light can harm productivity and concentration levels. Consequently, this can often lead to spaces being over-lit by bright fluorescent lights, which can cause strains on the eye, so finding the right balance represents a delicate but vital process.
The best spaces, therefore, incorporate lots of natural light. Large windows can also be used as statement features in meeting rooms, bringing extra vibrancy to a space. Where natural light is scarce, glass partition walls give the benefits of segregation and privacy whilst maximising the amount of light that can enter the meeting room.
The acoustic properties of a meeting room also warrant close attention. Eradicating external noises from seeping through helps keep meetings distraction-free. Carefully treated rooms are proven to boost productivity by up to 75% and minimise disengagement. Meeting rooms are concentrated environments, so ensuring their acoustics must be built for clarity and precision.
Comfort and collaboration
Research from Otter found that on average, a third of an employee’s working hours are dedicated to meetings. For managers, that can rise to three days per week. Recognising the importance of comfortable meeting rooms to help power improved productivity, concentration, and performance is therefore integral.
If a meeting room is to foster a productive atmosphere, it must be a comfortable space to operate from. It can be argued, then, that the most used product in a meeting room is its chairs. The best meeting room chairs are ergonomic to better support our bodies and encourage better posture and are designed with flexibility in mind. Chairs equipped with wheels for easy manoeuvrability and adjustability from its height to armrest position help cater for a diverse range of people, establishing the meeting room as a place for everyone.
As an extension to that, it must also be accessible to all. From ensuring sufficient disabled access to amenities to support the neurodiverse, meeting rooms must feel like an inclusive and welcoming space, regardless of individual differences.
An axis for a healthy business
The prosperity of a meeting room can be defined by a combination of aesthetics, performance, and comfort. Whilst a stylish, reputation-affirming design is important, it must be equipped for the kind of meetings and usages that specific business needs from the space. Meeting rooms are the glue that holds an organisation together. To reach their full potential and help drive a business’s operational success, they must be comfortable environments carefully designed and equipped for hosting in-depth, business-altering conversations, inspiring fruitful creative sessions and ensuring a healthy future for its operations and staff.
To discover how EDB can elevate your meeting room, get in touch today.
