Meetings account for a decent amount of time in an office. Unfortunately, a lot of these meetings are often unproductive and dreaded by the attendees as a waste of time because of poor planning and management. While effective meeting management is a topic by itself, this article will focus on the role of the right office environment for productive and effective meetings.
- Book a meeting room in advance
Depending on the number and role of people attending the meeting, you have to decide the right size and type of the meeting room. For example, in some cases, it will be important to book a conference room or boardroom, while in other cases a small meeting room may suffice.
- Check for the right equipment in the meeting room
Based on the purpose of the meeting and the attendees, anticipate the equipment needs for the meeting.
Would you need computers or laptops? Would you require a projector? A white board? Flip charts? Telephones with speakers?
Many meeting rooms may not always come equipped with these; and it helps to arrange for these in advance so that they are all set up well in advance of the meeting.
We have experienced loss of many hours simply because the equipment had not been set up beforehand. A bit of careful advance planning can give such a tremendous boost to productivity of meetings.
- Ensure comfortable setting
It goes without saying that attendees in the room have to feel comfortable so that their attention is focused on the meeting instead of being bothered by some discomfort.
For instance, turn on the air-conditioner/ cooler (in case the office is not air-conditioned centrally) and set it to a pleasant temperature (around 22-23 degrees Celsius ideally) a few minutes before the meeting is supposed to start.
In the hot and humid climate of Mumbai, people often come sweating profusely into a meeting. How they’d welcome walking into a room that is comfortably cooled!
- Test acoustics of the room for tele/video conferencing
If you are expecting to conduct a meeting by video conference or teleconference, check whether the systems are working fine, especially the sound systems and the acoustics in the room.
It is very annoying to attend remote meetings with echos and a lot of background noise. In fact, some particularly-demanding clients cancel such remote meetings because of poor audio or video connections.
- Make the room noise-proof
Ideally the rooms are located far away from one another; but in case they are not, it is advisable to inform the staff in the vicinity of the meeting room about the meeting going on so that they take care to not disturb.
Obviously, if you plan to rent unfurnished office space and customise that space, you can plan the placement of your conference room or boardroom taking this factor into consideration.
- What if your office doesn’t have sufficient space
Thankfully, even if your current office space doesn’t have the requisite space or the facilities, there are excellent options available to rent meeting rooms in Mumbai on an as-you-need basis.
Compared to hotels which also offer meeting room facilities, the corporate meeting venue rentals like the one from Empire Business Centre tend to be more cost-effective (mainly because hotels generally make their money from the food/catering element of the package!).
So, the next time you are looking to organise an important meeting in Mumbai and you feel constrained to organise it internally, simply reach out to our office space consultants, who will recommend the right meeting room to rent for your needs. Our office locations in both Andheri and Lower Parel offer these facilities.
Looking to rent a serviced office in Mumbai? The Empire Business Centre offers excellent options for private offices, shared co-working offices and virtual offices for solo-entrepreneurs and MSMEs. Contact us today with your office space requirements and our consultants will get back to you immediately.