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How often does your company use huddle rooms for collaboration?

A recent study by Polycom has revealed Singapore as a leading Asia Pacific (APAC) user of collaboration technologies in small meeting rooms, also known as huddle rooms.

The study. titled 'Growing Big Ideas from Small Spaces', explored the top collaboration preferences among APAC workers, and surveyed over 2000 workers including 202 from Singapore. According to the results, 96% of Singapore and APAC workers said collaboration technologies helped them be more productive and to work smarter.

In line with that, here's how staff in Singapore lead APAC in the usage of such tools:

  • To improve collaboration (77%)
  • To facilitate the transfer of knowledge (74%)
  • To increase productivity (70%)
  • To enhance innovation and new idea generation (56%)

Further, 49% of Singapore workers use huddle rooms only once to twice a week, while one out of three uses it almost daily, mainly for internal meetings, followed by customer meetings and brainstorming sessions.

However, less than half (41%) of these huddle spaces in Singapore are video-enabled - a stark contrast to 77% in India and 74% in China, suggesting significant opportunities for decision-makers to improve collaboration experiences and adopt technology-enabled environments for their businesses.

Mei Lin Low, Director, APAC Solutions Marketing, Polycom, said: "Today’s digital workers want to work smarter – connect and interact spontaneously, produce outcomes and drive results quicker. Technology-enabled huddle rooms satisfy this need for real-time, productive collaboration and are now, more than ever, an important component in an organisation’s digital transformation journey."

She added: "While you don't need expensive equipment to make great collaboration happen, a huddle room has to serve its purpose in enabling team meetings across any distance."

To aid HR leaders and decision-makers in facilitating better collaboration through the use of huddle spaces, the report has introduced the following recommendations:

#1. Bring more people into the room

In a huddle room, people often expect to connect face-to-face with remote colleagues or external clients. Given the small nature of the space, the standard emphasis on "zoom" capabilities for a camera is less important than the "field of view" (i.e., capturing everyone in the room). It is recommended that the majority of the huddle room budget is allocated to enabling video conferencing.

#2. Make sharing content stress-free

Content sharing is not just a way to fill in time during a meeting—it’s fast becoming one of the most valuable tools used by teams during a collaboration session. The result being the shared output of all knowledge workers physically present. Imagine how more productive a meeting becomes when people can share single or multiple streams of content wirelessly, zoom and adjust layout, or simultaneously annotate on still images and documents.

# 3. Work the way you want to

Meeting spaces should be adaptable for any device and offer workers to seamlessly move from desktop to meeting room. Single click-to-join functionality, for example, provides a simple meeting workflow and natural meeting experience.

4. Make informed decisions

What goes into your huddle rooms, how the tools are being used, and how frequently the space is used can go a long way in improving on future strategies and planning.

For example, tracking who uses a huddle room and which tools are most frequently utilised can provide the type of insight required into designing future huddle rooms in other offices. And if some of the technology is lying idle, any issues can be identified and training requirements met.

Lead image / 123RF

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