There’s a lot that goes into creating an optimal environment for today’s increasingly remote and collaborative workforce. People are a company’s greatest asset, and their ideas exist wherever the people are, with ideas forming when they work cooperatively together. For this modern workforce to achieve maximum potential, providing the tools to help them meet and collaborate where they work is critical. Enter, the rise of the huddle space.
Gone are the days of pulling a small group into an office for a quick meeting, because with rising real estate costs and trends towards open office environments, the concept of the “private office” is almost gone at this point. In the 2000s, facility managers typically thought they needed 200 to 400 square feet per person to build an effective office workspace. Today’s standard workspace averages a little more than 190 square feet per person and could hit a mere 60 square feet in the next five years. Global estimates for Europe and Asia are even less, already as little as 50 square feet in many locations. Without private offices, people now seek out a conference room to discuss things—and there simply aren’t enough traditional conference rooms to go around. This is why companies are adding more, smaller spaces instead.
With huddle spaces, employees seeking quick collaboration find an available meeting space where they can engage face-to-face or through a videoconference. The need for this type of meeting space is only anticipated to increase as more millennials enter the workforce. 61 percent of millennials frequently use videoconferencing technology as compared to just over 40% for preceding generations, meaning videoconferencing is not just on the rise, it’s the new normal. So having a way for employees to quickly collaborate with anyone around the globe is vital.
Would you like to learn how to create effective huddle spaces that not only support productivity but also inspire creativity? Check out our Huddle Space Design Guide for more information, including references for all of the statistics I’ve cited today.
Do you have tips on creating effective huddle spaces? Share them in the comments.
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