The hybrid workplace is here to stay. That means it’s time for companies to move beyond “need to have” AV technology and start adding “nice to have” solutions to their hybrid office design. In this blog, we’ll talk about some innovative solutions that can help organizations do more than just meet the basic requirements for hybrid work. And bonus: adding these capabilities will also help foster creativity and empower hybrid workers.
What AV Technology Tools Improve Collaboration?
Collaboration is key to the success of most organizations, but these days huddling in a room to work together is not always possible or safe. Adding touch-free AV technology to your hybrid workplace design can make it safer and easier for colleagues to collaborate, said Tim Koskamp, Field Sales Engineer at Biamp.
Modena from Biamp is a touch-free, cable-free technology that includes a virtual whiteboard, markup and annotation. Crowd Mics allow remote meeting or event attendees to speak, text, or respond to polls directly from their own devices, fostering a more immersive remote meeting experience.
How Can the Right AV Tools Support Your Company Culture?
Building a culture of trust and community among your workforce is more complicated than ever when employees are not together in the office very often—or at all. Simple things like turning on the camera during a video conferencing meeting are small steps towards positive collaboration. And companies shouldn’t settle for equipment that “just works” or is “good enough.”
“You really need the technology to extend the conversation and make it feel like everyone is in the same room,” Tim said. “If people are holding back or censoring themselves because the audio is choppy, they’re never fully expressing their ideas. When you add it all up, the company loses productivity and diminishes the potential of what the conversation could have been when the technology interferes.”
AV systems in the hybrid workplace need a performance margin that keeps audio quality and speech intelligibility high, even when the circumstances are less than ideal. For example, your AV system might work fine when meeting attendees are speaking normally. But if meeting attendees are wearing masks, a clear conversation becomes an unintelligible conversation pretty quickly.
“You need a system that can handle a variety of audio issues, whether it be a mixture of soft and loud talkers or people wearing masks,” Tim said. “Many cheaper products simply can’t handle issues like that.”What
AV Tools Help Foster Creativity and Community in Your Hybrid Workplace?
To keep up effective collaboration in the hybrid workplace, you need technology that enables natural conversations no matter where your team members are. Technology that’s easily noticed or distracts from the meeting isn’t doing its job properly, and that means your employees can’t do their jobs properly either.
The Biamp Conference Room Designer lets you create a customized hybrid office design based on your individual spaces and needs. Using the online tool you can design your room, place the furniture, and get a customized placement plan for the speakers and mics that are best suited to your application. This personalized approach also ensures that meeting attendees can move in the room normally—go to the whiteboard, or adjust their chair height—without worrying about compromising the audio quality.
“Our audio solutions provide a high-quality, natural sounding experience so that the remote person feels like they’re right on the other side of the table,” Tim said. “You can remove the technology from being a focal point and let everyone engage on a personal level.”
Looking to cultivate the right Hybrid Workplace design that fits your unique needs? Download our latest guide today and get the advice and insight you need to design spaces that meet your evolving needs and foster a collaborative and connected company culture.
