Meeting Room Technology is Fundamental to Successful Return-to-Office Strategies

Written by Mike Davis | WWT & Joe Mukherjee | HP Poly

Collaboration and Communication Without Compromise

The pandemic era forced a shift to remote and hybrid working models but now many organizations are encouraging—or requiring—employees to return to the office. Enhanced collaboration and productivity as well as strengthening company culture are just some of the reasons businesses are championing return to office (RTO) strategies. However, they're finding it's not that easy. To this point, a recent research study indicates that 8 in 10 employers have lost talent due to RTO mandates. [1]

Although a significant number of organizations are implementing RTO measures, the majority of companies will continue to offer flexible approaches to work, which requires companies to balance RTO with a dispersed workforce. That's why RTO strategies need to meet the needs of all employees to ensure the meeting experience is consistent, easy, and satisfying regardless of where employees and meeting guests are located. During the shift to remote work, many organizations paused on investments in in-office meeting and conference room technology, which means that a significant number of returning employees are faced with outdated and insufficient solutions that no longer meet the needs and expectations of users, or the IT staff tasked with supporting them. Making it easy (and desirable) for employees to return to the office requires that today's organizations 'earn the commute' with easy, positive, and productive in-office meeting experiences.

[1] Resume Builder, 1 in 4 Companies Plan To Increase Required Days In-Office in 2025, Despite Majority Losing Talent Due to RTO Policy

Bridging the Communication and Collaboration Gap

Meeting room technology needs to evolve to bridge communication and collaboration gap between in-office and remote and hybrid employees—for an equitable experience regardless of where meeting attendees are located. This is vital to on-going organizational success. What's more after years of remote work, employees expect an easy, positive, and productive experience that resembles the environment they've become accustomed to when working in remote locations—whether that's a home office, an airport lounge, or a coffee shop—where BYOD is the norm. This is essential to employee retention and satisfaction, as well as facilitating a greater level of collaboration and communication across your organization. To this point, a positive user experience requires:

• All aspects of conferencing are easy to use
• A consistent experience regardless of device or platform
• All unified communications tools are reliable, including headsets, handsets, and video conferencing hardware

At the same time for in-office staff, conference rooms and huddle spaces need to be self-service and intuitive without significant set-up or technical support. 

Conference Room Refreshes Should Simplify IT Workflows, Not Add Burdens

As organizations invest in updating meeting room technology, IT face new challenges. In many cases, existing meeting room equipment is a mix-and-match combination of varied solutions, vendors, and technologies, which resulted in different management platforms that create backend complexity. And, because modernized enterprise apps are running in the cloud, on standards-based devices in dispersed locations, conference room technology now needs to evolve to keep pace. 

Today, meeting room technology needs to simplify device management to ensure interoperability and a consistent user experience. But this can be challenging with legacy and disparate conferencing solutions. IT needs to ensure that meeting room technology can be easily installed, managed, and used with minimal intervention or demands on the resources tasked with supporting in-office and remote employees. 

Conferencing Technology Should Adapt to Meet User and IT Needs for Seamless Collaboration 

The ability to pivot is the key to RTO success. That's why meeting room technology needs to evolve alongside your business. Specifically, it should have: 

For users: 

• The ability to self-serve audio and video conferencing solutions without help from IT or other facility resources to set-up services.
• Familiar interfaces and devices regardless of meeting locations.
• Meeting rooms that leverage AI technologies to enhance the audio and video experience and make work easier for all team members, regardless of where they're located.

For IT: 

• Easy integration and management across different platforms and room types while supporting diverse devices.
• Seamless integration with existing infrastructure to reduce costs, improve efficiency, and optimize IT resources.
• The ability to proactively troubleshoot and manage conferencing technology before users are affected by issues that hinder collaboration.
• A single pane of glass to troubleshoot and optimize the user experience.

The Modern Meeting Room's Key Features and Functions 

Today's meeting rooms can't look—or function—like rooms in the past. Where once they were merely a place for conference and video calls, now meeting rooms need to create equity between those in the room and those who aren't. They need to support work from anywhere, on any platform. And that means transforming the entire experience. 

So, what does today's refreshed meeting room look like? A refreshed large-scale meeting room today is a hub of advanced technology designed to support seamless collaboration between in-person and remote participants. It should provide an immersive, engaging, and inclusive environment with a wider range of devices in a simplified environment. It should be free from barriers to adoption with an economical solution that provides a single management tool across all conferencing infrastructure. It must be user friendly with a consistent experience across all meeting locations, regardless of room size, and easily provisioned in locations without technical resources. Interoperability to accommodate BYOD with plug and play USB in huddle rooms is also key as well as remote management capability so users can initiate a remote request for assistance and IT can troubleshoot or ensure the user is comfortable with the room's devices.

HP Poly: Outfitting Office and Personal Spaces So Everyone Can Look and Sound Their Best

HP Poly is designed for today's transformed work environment. With world-class solutions that are simple to use, and easy for IT to install and manage, Poly supports work from anywhere, on any platform, to create equity between employees regardless of whether they're in the room or offsite. 

The extensive HP Poly portfolio meets the unique needs of organizations, with limitless options based on the cameras, mics, and core computes that align with your room designs. This creates a consistent user experience from room to room and universal management for IT, without sacrificing flexibility—while yielding cost savings and lowering maintenance. And, because Poly is certified for use with multiple conferencing and collaboration platforms—including Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Google Workspace, GoTo and Five9—if you move platforms in the future, your investment in Poly is protected and there's no costly or resource-consuming forklift upgrades. 

HP Poly's commitment to sustainability also means that every HP Poly device meets or exceeds HP's sustainability metrics, with post-consumer recycled plastic, post-consumer recycled metal, and post-consumer recycled packaging across all HP Poly products. 

From video bars designed for different room sizes and easy plug-and-play functionality, to cameras and audio devices that defeat environmental challenges, HP Poly solutions innovate your conference room experience. And with a cloud-based management application that gives IT better visibility to remotely inventory, monitor, and troubleshoot HP Poly devices, IT can proactively address and eliminate problems before users are affected. 

WWT and Poly: A Unified Vision for Successful Return-to-Office Initiatives

WWT and HP Poly share a vision for the future of work, grounded in a deep understanding of what is required for a successful return-to-office (RTO) initiative and the important role of unified communications solutions. These solutions must be:

• Flexible and Versatile: Supporting collaboration across rooms of all sizes and compatible with all meeting platforms.
• Mitigate Proximity Bias: Ensuring effective collaboration and communication for all users, regardless of location.
• Accommodate Diverse Devices: Supporting all users whether they use Android, Windows, or other platforms.
• Simplify Device Setup and Management: Making the process of switching platforms or devices easy and fast.
• Leverage AI: Enhancing the overall user experience through artificial intelligence.
• Unified Management: Simplifying oversight with a single application to manage all infrastructure.

Together, WWT and HP Poly provide users with the easy, engaging experiences they desire while empowering IT to manage conferencing solutions simply and effectively. A return to the office requires a new perspective on your meeting rooms. With WWT and HP Poly, this translates to collaboration and communication without compromise. 

Connect with the authors

Mike Davis, Technical Solutions Architect, Global Solutions and Architecture | WWT

Joe Mukherjee, Director Technical Consulting (Pre-Sales), America's Channels & Canada Sales Engineering | HP Poly