Meeting spaces facilitate collaboration and teamwork across the organization. But in this era of hybrid work, these meeting rooms need to incorporate a lot more than just a roundtable and a projector. As teams work from different locations and use different devices to interact and collaborate, meeting spaces must comprise interactive displays, video conferencing systems, intelligent speakers, and more. Learn why it’s time to modernise the enterprise meeting space and the role Microsoft Teams Rooms plays.

The Challenges of Existing Enterprise Meeting Spaces

Modern-day meetings aren’t about a group of participants seated in a room, engaging in face-to-face interactions. As employees transcend locations, meetings have expanded beyond the four walls of a physical meeting room and demand good-quality video conferencing. They are now attended by people who are dispersed across locations, using different devices, and with different internet speeds and bandwidth.

But despite the metamorphosis in how meetings are conducted, some organizations continue to rely on traditional tools and equipment which hamper communication and collaboration:

• Poor room layouts and camera placements restrict a good view of participants, especially for workers who use their mobile phones to participate.
• The dependence on physical whiteboards for brainstorming and content sharing is another problem area that makes remote participants feel excluded.
• Poor audio quality leads to unnecessary interruptions in meetings, causing on-site participants to miss out on critical details.
• The inability of remote participants to engage in meaningful conversations or share their views with their in-office counterparts as the meeting progresses causes a sense of neglect and resentment.
• In meetings that have an equal mix of remote and onsite participants, nonverbal cues are difficult to notice or decipher, which impacts comprehension.
• Technical challenges like intermittent connectivity disrupt the flow of the meeting and hinder effective communication, leading to unnecessary misunderstandings and a sense of disconnect.
• Maintaining engagement levels across virtual and in-person participants with traditional tools can be challenging, causing feelings of detachment. 

Modernising Meetings with Microsoft Teams Rooms

Current meeting challenges can have extremely far-reaching consequences on organizational productivity. It can hamper communication and collaboration, cause employees to feel demotivated, and also hamper business goals and objectives.

To overcome these challenges, organizations must enable a meeting experience that is consistent across the board. Modernising enterprise meeting spaces can help solve technical issues, inequality of experience, and low engagement and participation levels. It can allow for better and easier accessibility and inclusion, and strengthen team cohesion and bonding.

Microsoft Teams Rooms delivers the perfect set of capabilities to level up meeting spaces. Offering the ability to turn any space into a smart meeting room, it paves the way for inclusive collaboration, giving everyone an equal opportunity to participate. Being richly intelligent, flexible, and scalable, it fosters seamless collaboration via certified and tested devices. AI-powered management helps save time and reduce complexity while ensuring the highest levels of security.

Delivering a futuristic vision of meetings, Microsoft Teams Rooms allows organizations to:

1. Simplify joining and participating in meetings: With Microsoft Teams Rooms, organizers can easily book a room by adding it to meeting invitations or by using a Microsoft Teams wall panel. One-touch capabilities allow participants to instantly join meetings and engage the AI-powered audio and video equipment. Proximity Join capabilities to detect and join nearby Teams Rooms meetings—with audio muted automatically to avoid feedback.
2. Boost interactivity between in-person and remote participants: For geographically dispersed organizations with a mix of onsite and hybrid employees, it is easy for participants to feel left out. Microsoft Teams Rooms allows for highly interactive meetings. Inclusive video layouts ensure the same experience for everyone, thus fostering deeper bonds between in-person and remote participants. For instance, IntelliFrame enables equitable meeting experiences, giving faces in the room their own place in the video gallery.
3. Enable friction-free meeting experiences: Meetings are an integral aspect of the modern workplace. Yet, they don’t always give everyone an equal chance to participate. Microsoft Teams Rooms empowers everyone to easily join and participate in meetings and focus on what matters most. Intuitive touch controls and familiar Microsoft UI across all spaces and devices allow for consistent, friction-free meeting experiences.
4. Enjoy high-quality audio-video capabilities: In hybrid meetings, not being able to see or hear other participants is a common challenge. Microsoft Teams Rooms offers intelligent speakers and cameras to ensure everyone is heard and seen. AI-powered audio and video with noise suppression makes every participant feel a part of the same space. Teams can also leverage the benefits of AI-powered active speaker tracking, have multiple video streams, and make the most of people recognition capabilities.
5. Simplify real-time content sharing: Remote participants often find themselves struggling to put their points through in hybrid meetings. Microsoft Teams Rooms allows participants to share content in real-time and collaborate effectively. They can use PowerPoint Live and Excel Live to present information, participate in whiteboard sessions, and co-edit documents. Participants can also use Microsoft 365 apps to collaborate during meetings and the Surface Hub mobile touch board for co-creation.

Meeting spaces, whether small, big, or large, need to offer the same experience to participants – regardless of where they are located. However, the reliance on traditional meeting tools and approaches impedes productivity and satisfaction – especially for remote participants who feel excluded. Modernising these legacy spaces can have a substantial impact on how people come together, share ideas and content, and work collaboratively on issues. Looking to create closer connections between virtual and in-person participants and boost meeting efficiency? Learn how Resurgent can help you connect people across your hybrid workplace with Microsoft Teams Rooms consulting, implementation, and support!