Five Principles for Evolving Meeting SpacesFive Principles for Evolving Meeting Spaces
Organizations that are slow to optimize their spaces run the risk of missing out on getting the best possible outcomes from their meeting space usage.
June 2, 2025
As companies have increasingly returned at least some portion of their workforce to the office, many have not yet modernized their meeting spaces. Metrigy’s research found that on average, meeting spaces are updated no sooner than every three years. Meanwhile, the rate of advancement of meeting space technologies continues to advance, meaning that organizations that are slow to optimize their spaces run the risk of missing out on implementation of capabilities that improve meeting space usage, productivity, and efficiency. Here are five areas that IT, business, and facilities leaders should proactively consider.
One Size Does Not Fit All
Meeting spaces vary in size and use case. Small open spaces that are designed for huddles are likely to have very different requirements than large classrooms. Organizations need to adopt a flexible approach that puts the right devices in the right space. For open spaces, consider leveraging technologies that allow for geofencing of spaces to blur or block out images and noise beyond the space’s designated perimeter. For rooms that provide flexibility consider solutions that enable video and audio to be easily configured for a divided space, or for instances where divided spaces are combined to form a larger space.
Match Hardware to Need
Companies have a wide variety of meeting room hardware available to them. Our Employee Engagement Optimization: 2025 global study of 400 organizations shows planned deployment growth for a number of devices including bring-your-own-compute systems that require an external device to run meeting app software (typically a dedicated PC or computing device, or an attendee’s personal computer), one-touch-join systems with integrated compute, touch-screens, and in-room sharing devices. In-room sharing devices are especially useful for when visitors need to project content from their device, or when a group meeting in a room, without using a meeting app, wants to share and collaborate around content.
Additionally, vendors now offer a variety of devices to make those within a room more visible to remote attendees. These include center-of-table cameras and multi-camera systems that place several cameras around the perimeter of the room to capture attendees wherever they sit or stand. Intelligent microphones too can ensure that everyone within a room is heard. Our research shows that nearly half of companies are already investing in technologies to achieve meeting equity.
Optimize for Multiple Meeting Apps
Our Employee Engagement Optimization: 2025 study shows that the majority of companies (50.5%) currently support more than one meeting app, mostly to enable seamless connectivity for external meetings. Just 19.3% of those currently supporting multiple apps plan to consolidate down to a single app. Systems must be designed to fit a variety of use cases including one-touch join for primary meeting apps as well as enabling easy join from a meeting room to other meeting apps as needed.
Leverage Reservation Tools
Our Employee Engagement Optimization: 2025 study shows that about 32% of companies currently use workspace reservation software to manage meeting spaces and flexible desktops. Often these apps are used in conjunction with in-room devices, digital signage, and space availability indicators to help direct individuals to their reserved space, or to space that is unoccupied. Workspace reservation software offers additional benefits such as analytics to understand meeting space utilization, energy cost-management options to reduce power to an unused room, plus the ability to free up space when those who reserved it either don’t show up or leave early.
Don’t Forget About Management
Proactive meeting space management is critical to minimize operational costs and improve user experience. Today, we see a growing number of tools from vendors including Cisco, HP, and NetSpeek bringing advanced AI-powered capabilities to meeting space management. These tools include the ability to monitor space utilization, manage voice and video quality, remotely troubleshoot hardware issues, and use AI to identify problems, recommend solutions, and to even implement fixes.
Achieving Success
Organizations must take a proactive approach to optimizing their meeting space to ensure that they are providing the best possible employee experience while minimizing ongoing management costs. Use these five guidelines and use flexibility to configure the right hardware for how spaces will be used and optimized.
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About Metrigy: Metrigy is an innovative research and advisory firm focusing on the rapidly changing areas of workplace collaboration, digital workplace, digital transformation, customer experience and employee experience—along with several related technologies. Metrigy delivers strategic guidance and informative content, backed by primary research metrics and analysis, for technology providers and enterprise organizations
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