3 Ways Huddle Rooms Can Help You Collaborate More Efficiently

Chances are, your organization still has a large, corporate boardroom. But aside from the all-hands, large-scale team meetings, is it being used efficiently? With the rise of the remote worker, enterprise collaboration needs have evolved – in addition to large boardrooms, organizations should also employ huddle rooms to help workers collaborate more efficiently.

What is a huddle room?

While a boardroom is built for large groups, huddle rooms are smaller spaces designed for up to six people. A huddle room is meant to be a more collaborative space, and comes equipped with collaboration tools such as whiteboards and videoconferencing, allowing coworkers to connect both in-person or remotely. Digital whiteboards allow workers to write, draw, share and annotate presentations. Their ideas can then be sent to their desktop or mobile devices, instead of remaining in the room, which facilitates further collaboration.

3 most common use cases for huddle rooms

Remote workers are driving the need for huddle rooms. As many more colleagues work from home, or even from a different city, province or country, the needs of the modern worker have changed, and an audio-only conference won’t cut it anymore. Nor do you want to book the biggest boardroom when three-quarters of your meeting attendees are participating remotely. A huddle room, complete with videoconferencing and whiteboarding solutions, allow coworkers to collaborate on a level that audioconferencing simply does not provide.

With that in mind, here are three common use cases where a huddle room can help you collaborate more efficiently.

1. One-on-One Meetings with Remote Workers. The weekly one-on-one is a workplace staple. These regular check-ins allow a manager to touch base with their direct reports to get status updates on all of their projects. A huddle room can make these meetings more personal. Rather than simply speaking on the phone, a manager is able to see their employees face-to-face, and can pick up on any non-verbal cues or facial expressions. This can also make it easier for them to discuss any distractions and develop more of a personal relationship beyond workplace projects.
2. Instant whiteboarding sessions. How often has it happened that a colleague comes over to your desk with an idea, but you don’t have the capacity to capture all that they’re saying, and no follow-up action is taken? With a huddle room, this scenario can be avoided. Simply suggest “Why don’t we whiteboard this?” and you can share your ideas on the board, with a digital record that is saved for future reference.
3. Interviewing remote job candidates. Just as with a manager one-on-one, a videoconference allows interviewers to have more interaction with a job candidate than a simple phone call. But even for local job candidates, huddle rooms can save both time and resources. The idea of booking a large boardroom so that one or two interviewers can meet with a job candidate is not the best use of resources – and sitting in such a massive space can also be intimidating for the interviewee. Not only does a huddle room provide a smaller space for the interview, but it could also prevent the candidate from having to commute to your office, if you have the technology to interview them face-to-face, but remotely.

Huddle rooms can be sized to adapt to specific requirements, whether it’s a one-on-one remote meeting, a two-on-one job interviewer, or a face-to-face (to 3-4 faces) instant collaboration session. To learn more about our customized conferencing and messaging solutions, visit CDW.ca/collaboration