Your conference room probably stays pretty busy, between client meetings, new hire interviews and training programs. Whether you’re training multiple people at once or setting out to make your conference room a more efficient space, smart technology and thoughtful design can help turn it into a world-class training environment.
Design for People First.
Let’s think about the people who are going to be using your space.
There’s little that’s worse than trying to bring everybody into a crowded, cramped and uncomfortable conference space. If your employees are fighting for chairs or scouring the building for alternative objects to sit on, your training is already off to a not-so-great start. Your team should be focused and comfortable, with their minds clear enough to concentrate on the training itself rather than the accommodations.
With that in mind, make sure your space is large enough—and then make sure you design and furnish it deliberately. Choose a table large enough to accommodate your team but not so large that it dominates the room. Then, find some comfy and stackable chairs so you never run out of seating.
While you’re at it, consider repainting your space. Cool blues and greens are considered the colors most conducive to learning.
Choose Your Technology Wisely.
After you’ve chosen your space and made it both comfortable and functional, you’ll want to turn your attention to outfitting it with the appropriate technologies.
Naturally, not every available gadget will be necessary or even useful for the kind of training you’re doing, but don’t count out anything. You never know when a new gizmo will completely change how you train your team.
1. Booking Rooms
If your organization is large or growing, you probably know the unique frustration of marching upstairs to your preferred conference room only to discover it’s been spoken for already. That’s why it’s a good idea to have a smart system for reserving conference rooms.
There’s probably a dozen ways you can accomplish this goal. One way is to create a shared Google (or equivalent) calendar so everybody in your company can reserve the room from their own computer, including the day and the expected number of hours they’ll need it. Be creative, but remember to make the process simple and repeatable.
2. Staying in Touch
Not every seminar or training program will require the most cutting-edge technologies, but depending on your needs, your conference room might look pretty sci-fi before you’re done.
What happens when you have company offices scattered across an entire campus, or even an entire continent? Suppose you have to train all these people at once using only one qualified instructor? With the right technology, it can be a snap.
Modern telephone systems allow you to easily patch-in multiple locations for group calling and the like, but your best bet might just be teleconferencing technology. According to modern psychology, human beings are very much wired for face time; seeing the faces of the people you’re interacting with literally floods your brain with feel-good hormones like oxytocin.
If you’re trying to train a bunch of people at once and some of them can’t physically be present, consider investing in technologies that let you chat face-to-face regardless of the distance between you.
3. Showing Off
It’s been a long while since most of us heard the terrible screech of a grade school teacher scraping away at the blackboard with a blunt piece of chalk. If even the thought of that sound sends you falling back through a veil of bad childhood memories, take comfort that you’re not alone.
Yes — blackboards are old news. In addition to the chalk dust, they’re also just not that useful. Smartboards are the obvious choice for the well-appointed conference room. Already a hit among teachers in the K-12 set, smartboards replace your blackboard and your overhead projector with a whiteboard that can display images from your computer.
A major advantage of this type of technology is that it can accommodate different learning styles simultaneously. Instead of a dry, spoken lecture with note-taking, your learners can look at important graphics and other visual aids that will help with both enthusiasm and retention. Research suggests that training presented visually can increase recall rates to 65 percent. Smartboards are definitely the future of visual presentations, whether in the classroom or the conference room.
Do it Right, Just Once.
Creating the ideal conference room for training requires a combination of the right technologies and the right design sensibilities. With just a bit of planning, you can avoid having to reshuffle your conference room every couple of years as your team grows. Instead, you can design a comfortable and effective space that will serve your organization well for a long time to come.
