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COVID-19 has revolutionised the way we work. As the world goes back into the office, more and more businesses are adopting a hybrid work model. Hybrid meetings are quickly becoming the future of collaboration. 

These types of meetings come with both benefits and challenges. They offer incredible flexibility for employees. But it is also annoying and demoralising to remote participants when they are interrupted or talked over. 

Keeping your entire team effective during these meetings involves careful planning and intentionally crafted solutions. In this guide, we’ll teach you how to run fun and effective hybrid meetings with semi-remote teams. 

What Is a Hybrid Meeting? 

Hybrid meetings are very easy to understand in concept. They are meetings where a portion of the participants gather in person in a place like a conference room or office. The other portion calls in via Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or other conferencing platforms. 

These kinds of gatherings are the future of meetings, and they’re here to stay. That is why it’s so important to understand the unique challenges that hybrid meetings present, as well as how to solve them. 

What Is the Hybrid Work Model? 

The hybrid working model has been around for nearly two decades. But COVID-19 has made it a regular and essential part of almost every business’ operations. 

The hybrid model involves a portion of your employees working in-office, while another portion works remotely. Workers can choose daily or weekly whether or not they want to work from home or work in the office. 

However, hybrid working doesn’t come without its challenges. And the place that these challenges most often manifest is during hybrid meetings.

So what are some best practices for hybrid meetings? And what solutions can you employ to solve common hybrid meeting problems? 

Spend Extra Time Planning the Meeting 

The first thing you need to think about is the purpose and intended outcome of the meeting. Create an outline that organizes these thoughts and send it out to all participants early. 

Then, work from that outline to create a clear and detailed meeting agenda. In-person meetings that last longer than an hour are already exhausting. Your remote employees will be even more drained from having to stare at a screen and stay involved with the group. 

Create a time-stamped agenda before the meeting that clearly outlines each segment. It’s a good idea to appoint a timekeeper to ensure that everyone stays on track. 

Make sure that all participants have the materials that they need. Don’t waste time by making people search through your company’s database for the spreadsheets you’re referencing. 

Lastly, select meeting rooms with strong WiFi connections and all of the technology that you need for the meeting. This should include webcams, microphones, speakers, and projection screens.

If you are set up in a coworking space, select a meeting room for hire that is far away from the bustle and noise of the central space. This ensures that external noise interference will be kept to a minimum. 

Setting Up Hybrid Meetings

One of the most frustrating things to deal with during hybrid meetings is IT issues. Make sure to check your setup before the meeting begins and address any technical issues before everyone arrives. If you have new attendees, make sure they have the right Apps installed and setup.  

Coworking spaces will often have IT, technicians on staff, so take advantage of their expertise if you can’t figure something out well before you have attendees trying to join

You should also consider setting up multiple cameras that cover different angles in the conference room. The most important things for remote employees to see are the key speakers or presenters. Ensure that the space they will be using is clearly visible on the camera. 

It’s also a great idea to set up additional webcams for the in-person meeting participants. If your employees all have laptops, consider having them log in as well so that they are visible to remote participants. This allows remote employees to be engaged with the nonverbal communication going on throughout the meeting. 

Consider having all participants use a shared digital workspace. Companies like Miro offer virtual whiteboard solutions that allow everyone to add notes and thoughts as the meeting progresses. This helps make team meetings more interactive. 

Utilise other digital features like the chat function of your chosen meeting software. This lets participants ask questions and discuss without interrupting the presenter. It’s a great resource to look back at after the speaker is finished and answer any questions that were posed. 

Best Practices During the Meeting 

One of the things that remote employees struggle with the most is being interrupted or talked over during hybrid meetings. There are a few easy ways to combat this problem. 

If you have a series of speakers or several talking points to get through, pause after each one. Ask for questions from the participants, starting with the remote employees. If no one responds, call on individual team members and ask for their thoughts. 

If your meeting is more of a round table discussion, consider having participants raise their hand when they want to speak. If multiple people want to chime in at once, assign them an order and stick to it. 

Looking to make your hybrid meeting more fun? Assign break-out groups for employees to separate into during parts of the meeting. Have them collaborate on ideas together and then present one by one to the rest of the meeting. 

If you decide to incorporate break-out groups, have them be comprised of both in-person and remote employees. This helps remote attendees feel less isolated and draws attention to their contributions.

Just make sure to run through the technical bits of this transition before the meeting begins. Ensure that all remote employees know how to seamlessly transition into and out of break-out groups. This saves everyone time and energy. 

Lastly, embrace the quirks and opportunities that hybrid meetings provide. Laugh when an employee’s kids run into the room or when their cat walks across their keyboard. Have everyone use quirky Zoom backgrounds. 

Keeping things light hearted can go a long way towards boosting employees’ moods. And if there are technical difficulties, roll with the punches and learn for next time. 

Plan Your Best Hybrid Meeting Today 

Remote working is here to stay. You can look at this as a challenge to overcome or as an opportunity to improve your team’s efficiency and happiness. 

The key to this is planning and executing interactive hybrid meetings. You have to take extra steps to ensure that remote employees can be as involved and collaborative as in-office workers. 

If you’re ready to plan your meeting, look at some of our corporate solutions and hybrid office space for additional guidance. 

 

Some 10.5 million Australians have reported a change in the way they work since the beginning of the pandemic last year. COVID-19 has caused many hardships. One positive that has come out of it is a paradigm shift in the way companies and employers view work.

It’s likely that many of the changes COVID-19 has caused in terms of where and how employees work will become permanent. This is no bad thing.

Former outliers such as the hybrid office model, shared workspace or coworking office space will now, hopefully, begin to become the norm.

More and more businesses are beginning to have their eyes opened to the many advantages of working in an environment such as a shared office.

What is a Shared Office Space?

A shared office space refers to any commercially leased office space occupied by more than one organisation.

It can be an arrangement that the organisations strike up between themselves, for example, one business leasing out part of their office to another. It also often occurs within a serviced office space or a coworking space.

It can include private office space, open-plan offices, team spaces, private meeting rooms, or a myriad of other types of working setups.

What Type of Workplaces Exist in a Shared Office?

Hotdesking and coworking are buzzwords that have come into the lexicon of workplaces recently. But what do they mean? What’s the difference, and how do they relate to shared office spaces?

Hotdesking refers to unassigned desks within a workspace. Employees find a seat wherever they are comfortable and often end up working from a different desk each day. This type of seating is designed to maximise space and time efficiency.

A coworking space is a name for any workspace that is shared by workers from different companies and industries. These workers may have assigned areas within a specific space, or work on an ad hoc basis, as is seen with hot desking. 

Shared office space can feature both hotdesking and coworking members. Or it may be a space shared by two or more different organisations, each with its own specific area. 

Who Is a Shared Office Space For?

So, what are some of the different types of organisations that may be suited to a shared office environment? The short answer is any that appreciates the lower costs and many benefits involved. The longer answer is there are a number of specific cases in which this is an ideal set up for an organisation.

Commercial or corporate businesses that have downsized due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and have found that their current space no longer suits their situation. Start-ups and scale-ups where staffing and space requirements change on a daily basis. Overseas organisations that are opening a new branch and want to get a feel for the local area, the list goes on and on.

The Benefits of a Shared Workplace

The common thread that runs through all of these spaces is a sense of openness, community, and collaboration. Aside from the synergistic possibilities, many of the benefits are practical in nature.

Creative Collaboration

As the heads of some of the world’s biggest companies already know, collaboration and diversity breed creativity and innovation.

This is one of the biggest and best fringe benefits of working in a shared office space. The ability to meet, converse with and bounce ideas off people who have experiences and ideas that are different from your own.

Easy Scalability

One of the more practical benefits of a shared workplace is the flexibility it offers. In the fast-paced world of start-ups and new businesses, teams are constantly changing and growing. With them, a company’s space and office needs.

The space that suits your team now could be too big or too small in six months time. Companies grow and change direction all the time. A shared office space gives you the room you need to easily scale your business in whatever direction you choose, however quickly you need to do so.

State of the Art Spaces

Access to top-of-the-range real estate in vibrant, creative and entrepreneurial neighbourhoods is something that normally comes at a premium price. Through shared office spaces, your company can achieve this and more without breaking the bank.

For many businesses in a period of uncertainty or transition, this is one of the biggest benefits of shared office space.

Fully Serviced Facilities

With shared office space, you’re not only gaining a workspace and range of facilities. You’re also benefiting from the many services offered there. Depending on the workspace, this could mean any number of handy and helpful extras.

From round the clock cleaning, so you never have to take out the bins again, to a front desk receptionist to assist you with any queries you may have, shared working spaces are indeed spaces, but they’re also so much more. Coworking spaces take care of these necessities so that you can better focus on what you’re there to do: innovative and creative work.

Cost-Effective Office Solutions

From a purely practical standpoint, shared office spaces are superior to traditional office spaces in that they offer far greater value for money. For companies who are too small to fill an entire office, or too new to commit to a two-year lease, shared office spaces offer the perfect solution.

As our article on the costs of co-working clearly shows, when everything is taken into account, and a comprehensive cost comparison is carried out, a shared office space will generally work out much cheaper compared to a permanent office rental.

In fact, in a typical situation, savings on upfront costs of almost $20,000 can be expected, while savings on ongoing costs are estimated at around $6,500, but could come out much higher depending on the individual case.

Pay only for the facilities and space you need. Forget about contracts and financial entanglements and get a workplace you love without the commitment, hassle and expense of a permanent office building.

Shared Office Spaces: The Future of Work

As the employment and economic landscapes continue to evolve and react to major world events, more flexible workspaces are required to facilitate these changes. Shared office space offers the support, adaptability, and sense of community needed for startups and small businesses to weather any storm and thrive no matter what the world throws at them.

If you’d like to learn more about our coworking spaces book a tour today.

The pandemic has changed a lot of things and one might wonder, what will the workplace of tomorrow look like?

 

Read through this article by the MYOB Team featuring our co-founder, Jeremy Ellis, sharing his thoughts on the future of coworking space and its role in the new normal.

 

https://www.myob.com/au/blog/co-working-and-the-evolution-of-the-office-in-2021/

As the world’s economy evolves, so too, do its workers. The modern workforce is dominated by freelancers, small companies, and hybrid businesses. 

These workers need a new kind of office space. Something dynamic and flexible that can change to fit every kind of project they work on. 

These are problems that flexible office space is designed to solve. 

More and more businesses are giving up commercial leases and transitioning to the use of flexible office space. Is this design the future of work? Let’s learn more about flexible office space and if it’s right for you. 

What is Flexible Office Space? 

Also called a shared office space or “flexispace,” flexible office space is designed to create dynamic work environments. The workspace flexes and adjusts to accommodate the changing needs of employees and their projects. 

A flexispace consists of all the tools you find in a traditional office such as desks, chairs, computers, phones, and so on. The difference is that they are arranged in a versatile way that can be changed to accommodate workers’ needs. 

For example, one area in a flexible office space can be a group workspace one day, a place to hold meetings or presentations the next, and a project staging area the day after that. The idea is that the workspace changes as the needs of the employees change. 

In the business world, flexible office space is often synonymous with coworking space. Coworking spaces are buildings where several businesses rent desks, offices, and meeting rooms all under the same roof. They are designed to be versatile and change to meet the needs of cohabitation businesses and workers. 

Flexible workspaces have been gaining popularity with freelancers and enterprise companies. By 2022, the number of flexible workspaces available in the world is predicted to double from the 26 thousand that were available in 2017. 

Types of Flexible Office Space 

There are many different kinds of flexible office space available. Understanding what they are will help you pick the right spaces for your needs. 

One popular option is hot desking. Hot desking is when different people use the same desk at different times when they need it. You find an open desk, claim it, and get to work. 

This flexibility is linked to employee innovation and cross-business collaboration. A hot desk will be equipped with everything you need to start working immediately. This includes computers, phones, power outlets, and WiFi. 

Hot desking also gives you access to a facility’s resources. This can include meeting rooms, event spaces, client presentation rooms, and recording studios. A good coworking space will also offer IT services, printing, faxing, janitorial services, kitchen facilities, and more. 

If you’re the kind of person who functions best with assigned seating, dedicated desks might be a better option for you. These come with all the perks and flexibility of hot desking, but you’ll be working in the same space every day. 

These two flexispaces are a great solution to finding office space without the commitment and rigidity of long-term office leases. If you’re a freelancer, entrepreneur, or self-employed, hot desking or dedicated desks at a coworking space is one of the best ways to fight the loneliness of working at home. 

Some coworking facilities also offer private or shared office space. These options are awesome if you’re working with a small team of employees. You’ll get all the perks of operating in a coworking environment while also enjoying space that is dedicated to your team and its needs. 

Some industry leaders also offer an innovative new option, virtual offices. Virtual office business plans let you use the address of the coworking facility as your business address in marketing literature, business cards, and website. The facility will redirect physical mail to your home address and greet clients on your behalf. 

This solution is perfect for startups. If you’re not ready to commit full-time to hot desking or shared office space, virtual offices give you an extra level of flexibility. And if you need a meeting room or desk once in a while, you can pay for it by the day. 

Good coworking spaces are set up to give the businesses that use them as much flexibility as they need. Being knowledgeable about the different types of flexible office spaces that are out there helps you make an educated decision about which one is right for your needs. 

Flexible Workspace Trends 

It is undeniable that COVID-19 has changed the way we work. Many employees have enjoyed the flexibility afforded by working at home. The work from home model is especially great for disabled employees and workers who need additional accommodations. 

Working from home is here to stay. But it doesn’t come without drawbacks. Many employees report feeling lonely and disconnected from their coworkers. People miss the social aspect of work more than anything else. 

This is one of the biggest reasons that flex spaces are seeing a huge uptick in business. After an initial dip from the beginning of the pandemic, more and more entrepreneurs are choosing shared workspace as restrictions are lifted. 

Flexible office space gives workers the ability to choose when to work from home and when to go into the office. It also makes it easier to maintain social distancing by offering a smaller number of desks available for use. Coworking offices will make sure that they are appropriately spaced out from each other for safety.

Coworking spaces are also great for hybrid meetings. If half of your team is in the office and half is calling in via Zoom or Microsoft Teams, being able to rent a high-tech conference room will make your meeting go so much smoother. 

Flexispaces free you from being tied down to real estate contracts and leases. As our world changes rapidly, your business needs room to grow and adjust. Coworking offices give you that freedom. 

The Future of Work

Flexible office space is the future of work. In a world dominated by startups, small businesses, and freelancers, our workforce needs more flexibility in its daily operations. 

Coworking space is the perfect office solution. Providers make sure that you’ve got all the tools you need to get started right away. This cuts major costs like furnishing a commercial office space and IT setup. 

The best flexible office spaces also come with serious perks. These include kitchen facilities with free refreshments, showers, indoor bike racks, gym lockers, and more. 

The flexispace market was growing even before the pandemic. Now as more businesses take advantage of a hybrid work model that allows employees to work from home and in the office, it’s only getting bigger. 

Hybrid workspaces are also a great way to accommodate disabled workers and workers with children. The extra flexibility gives them the space to balance their work and personal lives and increase productivity. 

Let Your Office Space Work for You

Flexible office space creates a collaborative environment that changes to fit the needs of its workers. It is paving the way for workers to increase both their productivity and quality of life. 

Don’t let yourself get left behind in the office trends of the past. Find coworking spaces in your area and see what they can really do for your business.