1. Reimagine Audio and Video for Meetings
Conference rooms with a big screen and camera at one end are designed for room-to-room meetings. When local attendees talk and look at each other rather than the camera, remote participants may feel excluded. Rethink the audiovisual layout to include wireless microphones that can be placed around the table to help ensure everyone can hear what is going on. If your budget allows it, multiple cameras with smart conferencing software can help remote participants feel more included.
2. Deploy the Right Hardware for Healthcare Environments
Identify the important activities that people engage in while they’re in the conference room and find technology to support them. Focus on what assistive technology is needed to support in-person group work, then extend to hybrid workers the ability to participate fully. For example, digital whiteboards have gotten a lot better recently. It could be smart to review whether the hardware and software you have is meeting your current needs.
EXPLORE: How does a managed services provider solve collaboration challenges?
3. Train Your People on Meeting Technology
So many people struggle to get their laptops connected to shared screens in conference rooms that it’s a running joke in many organizations. Plug-and-play sometimes isn’t. Drivers or agents may need to be loaded. People need to know which of the various dangling cables to connect. The critical remote control may be sitting right beside one that is rarely used. Brief training and practice sessions that let people know what to expect when they arrive can head off many of these problems.
4. Optimize and Maintain the Conference Room
Review room layout and design with an eye toward hybrid meetings. With multiple remote participants in other offices or at home, you may need to rearrange tables and seating, lower cameras and screens, and even adjust lighting to accommodate multiple desktop participants. Meanwhile, regularly review conference rooms to make sure that all tools are working, intuitive and labeled; that wireless internet coverage is solid; and that power strips and chargers are where you left them.
UP NEXT: Read the ultimate remote collaboration hardware and software toolkit for healthcare.
