According to one global survey, meeting rooms still form the crux of their office needs, followed by the lobby/reception area.

In an online survey of 1,200 respondents across 13 countries on emerging trends in large-office (mostly housing 3,000 to 10,000 employees) workspace usage trends resulting from the coronavirus pandemic and hybrid/remote-working necessities, 62% of respondents had indicated that their employees were happy to return to the office.

In terms of office space importance, meeting rooms (76.1%) were rated the most important, followed by the office lobby/reception area (68.9%), the boardrooms (61.2%), the open office (58.1%), large multi-purpose rooms (45.7%), control rooms (40.5%) and auditoriums (36.3%), and experience centers (27.2%).

Some findings on office space reworking or modifications to fit into the new hybrid-working and remote-working requirements of workers included:

  • 23% of respondents were transforming auditoriums and experience centers based on new staff expectations; 73% indicated that large video walls can encourage people to collaborate and interact, while 45% indicated that large video walls can create a wow effect and impress whoever enters the lobby
  • 11% and 12% of respondents, respectively, were using multipurpose big rooms and experience centers primarily for company culture or employee engagement purposes
  • 28% of US respondents noticed changes most commonly in the multipurpose big rooms, whereas 30% of French respondents saw changes mostly in their office lobby/reception spaces. In Saudi Arabia, 19% of respondents disrupted their C-Suite’s office space.
  • 18% of respondents in the Netherlands cited using a large video wall in the open office
    spaces to “provide an immersive experience to customers and employees” and another 18% cited “engaging employees” as the reason for using such large displays. In Colombia, 4% of respondents chose ‘engage employees’ as the top reason for using a large video
    wall, versus 29% choosing ‘support communication’.
  • 70% of respondents indicated that their office strategy was aligned with needs of their
    employees, and 79% agreed to prompts that “workplace design should be developed around maximizing employee experiences”.

According to Rajiv Bhalla, Vice President Sales, Large Video Wall Experience, Barco (APAC),which commissioned the survey: “As the workplaces continue to transform and shift between remote, in-office and hybrid work models, companies are planning and redesigning their office spaces to create wow experience for customers and empower employees in enabling them to ideate, innovate and deliver their desired outcomes. There is an increasing focus on creating cohesive and collaborative workplaces with easier access to tools and resources… to maximize the entire back-to-office experience for employees and to impress visitors…”