Meetings – love or loathe them they are a part of working life
Posted on 22nd September 2023
Online or in person meetings
“I don't think anything replaces the face-to-face meetings and the personal connections that you get when you're in the same room or same place with people.” - Annamie Paul
Would you agree with this statement? Do you attend, organise or participate in a lot of meetings? And if you do, are these in person, on Zoom or Teams or a mixture of both.
There is no denying the fact that the way we communicate and the way we meet/have meetings has changed since the pandemic. Some would say for the better and some not. The pandemic did however open some company’s eyes to where/how meetings could be held.
According to Pumble, approximately 46% of respondents to a survey spend under 4 hours attending meetings, around 37% spend between 4-12 hours in meetings, roughly 12% spend between 12-20 hours in meetings and about 5% devote half of their workweek to participating in meetings.
All of this said, face to face meetings is still very popular, very useful, and can be a great productive way to learn, train, update, educate and make key business decisions.
Read on ...
Where do you hold meetings?
Having a bespoke and dedicated room is still a staple for many offices and workplaces therefore the boardroom or meeting remains.
Other ways we have seen and been asked to create for clients spacing wise is the usage of pods and booths for private and small meetings as well as soft seating and sofa areas for more informal and more brainstorming/breakout style meetings. Here is an example of
And here are a couple of examples of meeting rooms from our case studies https://www.sygnus-uk.com/case-studies/case-study-healthcare-provider/ and https://www.sygnus-uk.com/case-studies/case-study-alfa-chemicals/
Wherever you hold your meetings, things to consider for future space are the number of people, the tech/audio you need, access for all to use/enter the room, food and beverage facilities, accessories like white boards, screens and so on. Acoustics are also a consideration.
Meeting room furniture
The layout of your meeting/meeting room also needs to be factored in. Is traditional boardroom your preference or perhaps cabaret style or classroom style or u-shape style. Again this will depend on numbers, space and purpose. And of course you need to factor in the type of seating to fit/suit/work with the table in terms of height, comfort, flexibility, usage levels and more.
You can some furniture ranges for meeting rooms here https://www.sygnus-uk.com/ranges/meeting-room-furniture/ and some breakout style furniture https://www.sygnus-uk.com/ranges/breakout-furniture-booths-and-soft-seating/
“Meetings should have as few people as possible, but all the right people.” - Charles W. Scharf
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