Room Booking and COVID-19
Hosting meetings and booking conference rooms and resources are an essential part of any business, and unless you have a system to effectively manage and optimise these processes, organising a meeting can be overwhelming and time-consuming.
With everything that is going on at the moment, it seems wrong to talk about returning back to the office and meeting rooms without mentioning the coronavirus pandemic and how it has transformed the workplace and the way that we work and meet.
For those that are returning to work in the UK, it is essential that employees and visitors keep 2 meters distance where they can. This can be quite difficult in an office setting, particularly meeting rooms. This is where room booking management systems come into use as a valuable tool to create a safer workplace.
Room booking management systems provide an easy-to-use solution that allows employees to schedule desks and meeting rooms, find colleagues and be kept informed of changes to their working environments.
With a room management system, you have the ability to enforce workspace booking. You can manage all workspaces, including desktops and meeting spaces, either as allocated or bookable by the employee. They also have the ability to trigger a cleaning request for desks, with different cleaning requests if a space needs basic cleaning or deep clean for a new person.
You can assure social distancing is maintained by decreasing workspace density to reduce the risk of the spread of Covid-19, thereby helping you easily manage the number of employees allowed in the office or meeting space at any one time.
Can your meeting be held over video conferencing?
Face to face meetings are great for collaboration and discussions between companies and customers, but in cases where the meeting can be held over video conferencing, the World Health Organisation are recommending this as a preferred alternative.
Video conferencing is nothing new to those who have been working from home for the past eight weeks; Microsoft Teams and Zoom in particular have been increasingly popular with employees to communicate during the pandemic. But, on return to work, is your office fully equipped with the essential conferencing technology to have high-quality meetings with suppliers and customers?
Throughout this period, home workers are really seeing the benefits of video conferencing. Saving time on transport to and from meetings has allowed employees to be more productive, reduce emissions, and efficiently connect with a range of stakeholders, enabling collaboration to continue whilst employees work in a safe environment.
Although platforms like Zoom, Skype and Microsoft Teams are great for collaborating, it’s software is not the only essential video conferencing for a effective and productive conferencing meeting.
Display Screens
To have the perfect video conferencing suite for your company, you need to find the right display screen for the job. There are many factors to consider when choosing the right monitor for your conferencing room, the obvious being the size of the room. Conference rooms can vary dramatically in size from small huddle team tooms to the all hands-on deck auditoriums or lecture halls. You want to have the ability for everyone in the room to be able to see the full screen for a productive meeting. Whether you’re needing a 50-inch screen for your huddle room, a duo-screen for your boardroom, or a HD projector for the auditorium, Remark Group are partnered with a variety of commercially graded and industry leading suppliers, so we can work with you to provide the best solution for your business.
Camera
This may seem like an obvious one, but you will be surprised at how many out-dated, low-res cameras we have seen in our time. Not only do they provide the participants with a low-quality video, but they also have the tendency to be very temperamental, breaking up the meeting and causing it to be unproductive.
With multiple types of cameras out there, it’s not always easy to know which one to choose. Once again, this will often depend on the size of your conferencing room, as well as your budget and needs. For more help on how to ensure that your meeting rooms, huddle rooms or conference rooms can maximise efficiency with the right camera, get in touch today.
Audio
We have said this before and we will say it again, you can have a great audio conference without any video, but the same cannot be said for a video conference with poor audio. High quality audio is essential for having an uninterrupted and productive video conference.
Investing in high quality sound will help enhance the experience of your video calls. Be sure to select the right solution for your business; you could have a display with built-in speakers but achieve a rich and clear audio experience we highly recommend a separate sound system for the room. We have put together a separate piece on why we believe audio is so important for conference calls, you can take a read of it here.
Conclusion
With over 25 years’ experience in Audio Visual technology, Remark Group take pride in every AV project. Whether it’s a stand-alone solution for a small huddle room, or a large conferencing suite with a complete integrated package, we pride ourselves on ensuring that the solution is bespoke to you.
We are always happy to provide you with technology demonstrations at our headquarters in Peterborough, either face-to-face or virtually; you can book onto a demonstration here. Or, if you’d prefer a more informal chat, give one of our experts a call today.
