AVT Question: Please share insight into your company's roadmap for 2024.
Thought Leader: Zach Snook, Director of Product Management at Biamp
AV and IT leaders across mid- to enterprise-level businesses need to think not just about how they accommodate a distributed workforce within a hybrid work environment, but also about how best to leverage a scaled-down physical office footprint.
A smaller office space creates a need to be more intentional and strategic with how that space is utilized across individual offices, shared workspaces, and conference rooms. In response, organizations are increasingly adopting benching and hoteling strategies.
AV and IT leaders across mid- to enterprise-level businesses need to think not just about how they accommodate a distributed workforce within a hybrid work environment, but also about how best to leverage a scaled-down physical office footprint." —Zach Snook, Director of Product Management at Biamp
Benching promotes collaboration and interaction among in-office employees. Instead of assigned cubicles, employees share open workspaces, creating a more dynamic and collaborative environment. Benching fosters communication, encourages teamwork, and can optimize office space utilization.
Meanwhile, hoteling takes the concept of flexible workspaces a step further. Instead of having dedicated workstations, employees reserve desks or meeting rooms as needed. This approach allows for maximum flexibility, as employees can choose the most suitable workspace based on their specific tasks and requirements. Hoteling is particularly beneficial for organizations with a significant portion of their workforce operating remotely.
Organizations, therefore, must address issues like equitable access to workplace technology, effective communication in hybrid settings, maintaining company culture with a distributed workforce, and making it quick and easy for employees to reserve shared in-office resources—such as a workstation in a benching or hoteling environment—from anywhere.
Reserving office resources quickly and easily, and integrating a scheduling system with other office technologies such as conferencing solutions and unified communication platforms is now easier than ever thanks to the convergence of scheduling software and hardware within the corporate IT environment.
Those organizations that can master scheduling within effective conferencing AV ecosystems, including unified communication tools, will generate the most employee delight in hybrid work environments well into the future.
