Conference rooms are where community and motivation are nurtured. But most employees aren’t coming back to the office full-time. Many will stay remote. Even more will become hybrid workers — they’ll come to the office some of the time.  

How do you create a meeting space experience that continues to foster community and motivation in the new, hybrid workplace? 

Many workplace leaders are looking beyond the office for ideas. 

Feng Shui and space

Feng Shui is an ancient philosophy that focuses on harmonizing one’s living space with the energies of the natural world (1). Furniture, fixtures, knickknacks, even tiny gemstones — they all have a proper place in one’s environment that can facilitate human happiness. 

So, too, does empty space — particularly in the post-pandemic era. 

In a time when social distancing and six feet of distance are commonplace, companies need to stop viewing empty space as wasted space. 

“It’s not wasted space,” says Tracy Wymer, VP of Workplace Strategy at Knoll  “It’s comfort space. It’s space that allows people to comfortably pass by one another.”

In the past, when conference rooms were underutilized, you might have repurposed it into another space type. Moving forward, consider revising your definition of ideal occupancy in small spaces like conference rooms. Even when social distancing is in the past, it’s safe to assume your employees will have a newfound respect for boundaries.

Give them the space to create their own.

Movie theaters and immersion

Movie theaters are designed to bring audiences into the film. Perhaps a similar design can work to engage both co-local and remote employees, as well as encourage workers to come to the office more often. An example: 

Rather than sit at a long, rectangular table in a drab rectangular room watching a TV screen, consider tiered seating or pods of comfortable seats in the front of the room (2). 

With tiered or terraced seating, people can choose a spot that matches their comfort level around others. They can also easily pivot and engage with everyone in the space instead of being cut off by right angles and distance.

Adding a large screen or projection at the front of the room can create a more immersive experience for folks in the room. Investing in quality audio will make it easier for everyone (co-local and remote) to understand one another. 

Meditation and mindfulness

Often, the act of putting everyone in a room to develop the next big “thing” falls flat. You can’t always force ideation. So rather than amping up stress levels and performance, conference rooms can become meditation rooms for self-awareness and relaxation. 

You can do away with chairs and tables altogether. Instead, create an open space with natural light and invite employees to wear comfortable clothes they can move around in. Research shows that even a single minute of meditation can enhance a practitioner’s mood and creativity (3). 

Studies also show that meditation increases employee productivity by 120% (4). 

Nature and inspiration

Immersing your team in nature can lead to more inspirational meetings while making everyone feel safe in an open space. 

You don’t even have to wander too far away from your office to give everyone a sense of a new environment. For instance, if your building has a courtyard or outdoor seating area, try conducting your meetings there. You can also purchase new outdoor seating or invest in landscaping to transform the space into one that’s poetic and inspirational.

Even for your fully remote employees, encourage them to step outside with you — in their own environment — and conduct their presentation or meeting points outdoors. It may look silly, but going on a simple walk around the block can be a great idea for a remote worker to get some fresh air and still call in on their smartphone via Zoom (video optional).

For some insight into outdoor seating arrangements that breed creativity, take a look at how WeWork designs its outdoor spaces to boost human happiness (5).

Inclusion and listening

We all have the opportunity to make the workplace better. At the core of this is designing around inclusivity.

To be inclusive in your decisions, you must listen to your employees.

Find out what tools, experiences, and strategies work best for them. Then, you can make informed decisions that create the best meeting environment for everyone — no matter where they work. Continue to listen to your employees; their needs and expectations will change. Your conference room designs should change to meet these needs.

“We’re not creating monuments. This isn’t a monument to work we’re creating,” says Wymer. “What we’re creating is a platform. And hopefully, that platform has the ability to shift over time.”

As hybrid work becomes the standard among modern companies, each element of your office will need to be re-evaluated to ensure that it provides concrete value to your employees.

The ability to connect with colleagues will be paramount. We’ve learned that people can get work done from home, but that this comes at the expense of innovation, connectedness, and collaboration. One workplace survey found that only 40% of leaders would call their companies highly innovative in 2020, compared with 56% in 2019.

New research backs this claim, stating that Zoom kills creativity.

That said, there are a number of other areas of optimization that will also need to be addressed. Here’s what you’ll need to optimize for with a hybrid team, and how you can redesign your office to meet the needs of a distributed workforce.

Connectivity between distributed teams

Having a distributed workforce can lead to information silos, poor communication, and other organizational issues.

Unless you take the proper steps to create a seamless, integrated experience between on-site and remote employees. A RingCentral survey found that 41% of distributed workers cited collaborative work as the most challenging part of working during the pandemic.

Thoughtful restructuring of key zones in your office, combined with some technological investments and integrations, can help ensure that work can get done without a hitch.

Meena Krenek, an interior design director at Perkins&Will, notes the emergence of “Zoom rooms,” or conference rooms optimized for video conferencing.

You can replicate the feeling of an in-person meeting and create an equitable experience for all participants — no matter where they choose to work.

These meeting spaces incorporate 360-degree webcams, high-quality microphones, multiple screens, and even voice-tracking technology to ensure that, in any given meeting, remote workers don’t feel disconnected from their on-site counterparts. By implementing video conferencing technology and designating “Zoom rooms” in your office, you can replicate the feeling of an in-person meeting and create an equitable experience for all participants — no matter where they choose to work.

Flexibility

COVID-19 has rendered organizational rigidity largely obsolete as businesses are pressured to shift to more flexible ways of operating. The pandemic has highlighted a universal need for agility, especially related to the evolving world of work. We’ve now come to accept that organizational priorities evolve, work styles shift, and office occupancy ebbs and flows, and that such changes need to be anticipated to the extent possible.

One way to maximize workplace flexibility is by installing modular furniture. When workers transitioned back to the office in the latter half of 2020, it became clear that many office elements were impractical, at least for the time being. For example, the communal lunch table became temporarily defunct, while the need for “socially distant” meeting spaces increased.

Modular furniture can help you adapt your workplace to meet your needs at a given time; it’s lightweight, multi-functional, and easy to disassemble, making space reconfiguration simple. Modular workstations, for example, are made up of movable panels that you can lower to create a larger meeting space or keep up for more privacy.

As Amy Loomis, Research Director for IDC, puts it: “The future office space will be purpose-built to enable reconfigurable work arrangements that balance collaboration and privacy, group engagement and personal safety… The point will be to create adaptive and adaptable workspaces that are designed to accommodate a future of work that we don’t recognize yet.”

Dig deeper: Hear how Twilio’s Devorah Rosner is using dynamic spaces to make Twilio’s workspaces more agile.

It’s important not only to prepare for potential future crises but also to empower employee flexibility. Within a hybrid model, employees should be able to work how they work best. For collaborative sessions, this may be in an open office setting; for more heads-down tasks, this could be at home or in a designated quiet zone.

Rich Benoit, Senior Consultant at furniture company Steelcase, explains: “Just because I come into the office two days a week, doesn’t mean I only need a touchdown space because I’m there “part-time.” I still need access to privacy, the ability to find my colleagues and to be able to work in my rhythm”.

When restructuring your office, avoid creating one-size-fits-all layouts. Clusters upon clusters of desks without any private space, for example, won’t serve your employees. Instead, opt for multi-functional zones that you can adapt to a wide range of purposes. Alternatively, you can go for an activity-based model, in which each zone of your office is suited to a specific need.

Employee well-being

The pandemic has significantly heightened standards for employee well-being.

In a survey conducted by Stratus Building Solutions, 93% of workers surveyed expressed that, even after being vaccinated, they would need to feel confident about proper workplace sanitization practices before returning to work.

Even after being vaccinated, 93% of workers need to feel confident about proper workplace sanitization practices before returning to work.

Because they’re able to curate their home office environments to meet their health and wellness needs, employees will expect their office space to be similarly well-maintained and optimized for health and safety.

When structuring your office to meet the needs and expectations of a hybrid workforce, prioritize making your office healthy. Keep windows open when possible for additional ventilation and, if your return-to-work budget allows, invest in commercial-grade air purification systems. Make sure to invest in frequent cleaning and disinfecting (especially for any shared or common spaces).

Returning employees will also be conscious of frequently touched surfaces. When redesigning your workspace, see where you can implement touchless technology to reduce the spread of bacteria. This could apply to entryways, sink taps, light switches, and thermostats.

Additionally, you may wish to include implementing “safe” desk pods with plexiglass barriers for workers who prefer to remain socially distant.

Outside of physical health-focused measures, consider how to make your space work for your employees mentally. As we quash the idea of the office being the only place where work gets done, the office should evolve into a resource for employees. This means creating an inclusive, engagement-focused work environment that draws employees in.

When redesigning your space to meet your hybrid team’s needs, ask employees what they require in order to do their best work. Your goal should be to make the office a welcoming, comfortable place that fosters productivity and satisfaction.

A good place to start is by considering what employees can get in the office that they can’t get by working from home. For example, if you’re based in a dense metropolis like New York City, your local employees may not have enough space at home for a dedicated, quiet office area. Having fully-equipped, private workstations in your NYC office can help on-site employees better zone into their work.

Survey your employees to learn what would make the space ideal for their in-office days and implement suggestions to the extent feasible.

Generally, a few ways to support mental health with office design are:

• Incorporating biophilic elements, which are proven to boost mood
• Accommodating diverse work modes and preferences — for example, providing height-adjustable desks that allow employees to sit or stand
• Creating lounge areas dedicated to relaxation and stress reduction
• Fostering relationships by designating communal zones for socialization during breaks

By considering what your organization needs from the office environment moving forward, you can create an optimal experience for both on-site and remote employees.