How to Compare Hybrid Meeting Solutions in 2024

The future of work is hybrid. While 98% of companies are encouraging team members to return to the office (at least part-time), only a third of CEOs at high-revenue companies expect to return to the office entirely in the coming years.

The good news is that enabling hybrid work, with the right hybrid meeting solutions, rooms, and toolkits, pays off. Hybrid workers are happier, more productive, and more creative. And companies can save significant money on travel, technology, and real estate.

The challenge is finding the right hybrid conference room technology for your specific needs. Here’s your guide to comparing hybrid solutions.

Step 1: Define your hybrid work strategy

Despite the continued popularity of hybrid work, 68% of business leaders say they don’t have a clear vision for the future of flexible work. If you don’t know when and why employees will use office spaces, you can’t design effective conference rooms that meet their needs.

Take a look at your current workplace, talk to your employees, and figure out what kind of work needs to be done in the office and what can be done outside. How often will your team members come into the office and how many of them will use the meeting space? Do you need large conference rooms or can you create more small conference rooms and breakout spaces?

When teams are in the office, what resources do they need to collaborate with a hybrid workforce, such as video conferencing tools, whiteboards, and presentation software? How will you manage meeting rooms and ensure teams can efficiently book spaces?

Step 2: Prioritize hybrid meeting solutions

Once you’ve identified your hybrid work strategy, the next step is to define your priorities when creating meeting rooms. In other words, what are your goals beyond enabling flexible work? Are you looking to reduce operating costs?

If so, investing in BYOM (Bring Your Own Meeting) technology and multifunctional equipment like screens with built-in cameras and microphones could save you some extra cash. Are you trying to improve your company culture by promoting inclusivity? In that case, you may want to focus on conference room solutions that use AI or augmented reality to make your meeting spaces more immersive.

Perhaps you’re focused on sustainability, in which case you’d opt for low-power hardware and software that lets you automatically track device usage and turn off hybrid meeting solutions when they’re not in use.

Step 3: Choose the right equipment

Based on your research, you can start investing in the tools required to support hybrid meeting rooms. You can choose an all-in-one conference room kit designed by the same company that provides your conference room technology (e.g. Microsoft Teams) or a partner brand.

You can choose to combine a range of technologies depending on your specific needs, working with different camera, speaker and virtual whiteboard vendors.

When choosing equipment, remember not only to consider your priorities, but also whether:

• Ease of use: Your team members should have easy access to hybrid meeting solutions. Choose plug-and-play technology that requires minimal setup.
• Right: Your hybrid team members should have access to similar equipment, whether they work in the office or remotely. Make sure everyone has similar technology.
• Integration: Hybrid conference room technology must work with all the programs your employees use to meet and collaborate.

Be sure to consider everything from speakers and microphones to cameras, immersive displays, and accessories like sensors that track people in the conference room.

Step 4: Invest in the right software

You may already have the software you need for hybrid meeting rooms, such as Microsoft Teams Rooms or Zoom Rooms. These platforms make it easy for team members to share, connect, and collaborate, regardless of location.

They can also come with valuable built-in tools that let you track important metrics, such as how many employees are using specific hybrid solutions and meeting spaces. To get the best results, you’ll need a combination of software, including:

• Collaboration software: The right conference room allows users to host meetings large and small, with HD video and audio, file and screen sharing tools, calendar integration, and other essential resources.
• Conference room booking software: This technology gives team members the ability to reserve the spaces they need, configure them according to their requirements, and avoid disruptions. Ideally, the software should also include analytics for business leaders.
• Productivity software: Every additional member of the software development team must be able to work together effectively, from AI tools that streamline meetings, to whiteboarding software, brainstorming apps, and more.

Step 5: Evaluate hybrid meeting solution providers

Once you’ve determined exactly what you need from your hybrid meeting solution, the next step is to evaluate vendors. Some vendors may offer a combination of hardware and software to help you implement and manage your conference rooms, such as Logitech, Zoom, or Microsoft.

Others offer specific solutions for specific needs. When looking at options, learn as much as you can about the company’s reputation, commitment to customer service, and implementation options. For example, can they build and configure a full hybrid conference room solution for you? Do they offer training and onboarding support?

Look at their approach to hybrid meeting room security. Do they offer end-to-end encryption for all calls, as well as secure access controls? How do they ensure compliance with industry regulations? Also, consider their approach to innovation.

Are they continually investing in new solutions such as AI, immersive XR experiences, and more advanced AV equipment?

Step 6: Prepare for innovation

Finally, as the world of work evolves, it’s important to make sure your hybrid meeting solutions can adapt to the needs of your new workforce. Once you have all the essentials for an effective hybrid meeting room, look for ways to leverage technology to better your results.

Building AI into meeting rooms in the form of assistants like Microsoft Copilot can streamline meetings and increase productivity. These tools can summarize meetings, allow room reservations, create agendas, and track action items. You can also use AI-powered technologies like cameras and microphones to improve the quality of meetings.

You can even invest in immersive collaboration tools like Microsoft Immersive Spaces for virtual reality collaboration, mixed reality headsets like Apple Vision Pro, or smart glasses. This can help teams from different backgrounds work together more creatively.

Choose the right hybrid meeting solutions

Even if you encourage employees to return to the office part-time, they will still demand flexible and hybrid working. If you don’t invest in the right hybrid meeting solutions, your team’s productivity, engagement, and satisfaction levels will suffer.

Prepare for the future of work by purchasing the right hardware and software to empower your team members and improve business results.