It’s undeniable that working remotely has had a huge impact on how people run their businesses. But while many offices and employers are still flexible enough to run a work-from-home scheme, in-person meetings are making a comeback.
Face-to-face interactions are of the utmost importance for any business. This is especially so when you’re closing a deal with a client or strategizing for a big project with your team.
Many people will opt for a table at a café or a function room at a hotel to get these meetings on the road. But these places are either super expensive or too crowded and noisy. That’s why a conference room at a coworking space might be the most ideal place to hold meetings for remote workers.
Circle Hub has many types of workspaces and business services available. However, one of the most useful for teams is the conference rooms. Today, we’ll take you through the benefits of meeting rooms to help you decide whether it’s the best option for you and your team.
What is a Meeting Room?
A meeting room is exactly what it sounds like — a space designed specifically to hold meetings. It’s usually a big room with a conference table and comfy chairs, allowing you to discuss with everyone in the room. It’s a common fixture in offices, especially for companies that require creative collaboration.
Meeting rooms are also where salespeople and managers meet with clients to pitch their plans and ideas for big projects. This has a huge impact on revenue, so meeting rooms are one of the most important amenities to look for in an office space.
They’re usually set up to be conducive to digital meetings as well, especially in this day and age where a big chunk of meetings still happen over Zoom.
At Circle Hub, we have multiple conference rooms you can rent by the hour to hold your most important meetings and team huddles. We have four meeting rooms in total, spanning two locations. We have ready conference rooms for groups of six, eight, ten, and even 16 people!
Every Circle Hub conference room includes a flat-screen TV and a whiteboard — perfect for sharing ideas with your team or client. It’s also very private, so you can use the space if you and your team need to concentrate while working on something together.
A meeting room is undoubtedly among the first things you should look for when deciding on a business space to work at. But what else do you get out of a conference room aside from a venue to hold meetings?
Here are the top eight benefits of meeting rooms to answer that question.
1. You Can Hold Private Discussions About Confidential Projects
If you hold a meeting with your team or client in a public space — say, your favorite café — you need to be ready for people near you to pick up at least snippets of your conversation. Think about it, how many times have you accidentally eavesdropped on someone at the table next to you at Starbucks?
There’s no privacy when you hold a meeting in a common area, so it can be quite challenging to discuss confidential and top-secret matters. Even in flexible common areas at Circle Hub (like our hot spots), it can prove a bit difficult to hold a private conversation, especially on a day that’s fully booked.
Privacy is one of the biggest benefits of meeting rooms. Aside from having a place all to yourself, you’ll be free to talk about anything with your team or client without worrying about your plans being leaked or overheard by others.
The four walls of the conference room are all yours, so you can talk about sensitive information and data without feeling anxious about it.
2. It Makes a Good First Impression When Entertaining Clients
Another of the most important benefits of meeting rooms is that they give off an air of professionalism. This is pertinent when you’re trying to make a good first impression on a potential client or partner.
Making a great first impression is of the utmost importance for any businessperson. If you don’t dress well, speak intelligently, or ask to meet in a professional setting, the person you’re meeting can lose confidence in your potential partnership.
If you meet with a contact for the first time and do it at a café, it just screams unprofessional. You want to do it in an office setting, and a meeting room is perfect for that. It gives you a more prestigious and professional feel, and your clients will take you more seriously for that.
And when you build this kind of trust and credibility with others, partnerships (and consequently, profit) will follow.
Renting out a meeting room at a coworking space is extremely useful for freelancers and other remote workers who don’t have regular access to conference areas. It gives the people you’re working with an excellent impression of you and your business.
3. Booking a Meeting Room for a Few Hours Costs Less than Monthly Office Space Rent
Renting an entire office each month can be a pain. You need to think about the cost of the rent itself, but on top of that, you also have extra overhead costs, like electricity, water, and maintenance. You might even have to invest in office supplies and technology, like printers and WiFi.
It adds even more stress if you know that most of your employees are going to be working remotely, so you’ll be spending unnecessarily on an empty office.
One of the practical benefits of meeting rooms at coworking spaces is the fact that you can rent them out for the short term. It’s a lot better and smarter to rent a meeting room as needed instead of splurging on a space for an entire month. You’ll save a ton of money that you can invest back into your business instead!
At Circle Hub, you can book the conference rooms by the hour. That means no long-term commitment, and all the overhead costs are practically non-existent. No upkeep is needed — just book your meeting room, hold your team session, and go once you’re done.
4. It Has the Technology for Presentations and Video Conferencing
When you hold meetings at a coffee shop or even in private function rooms, there’s a big chance that you won’t have access to the appropriate technologies. Not all cafés have sockets to plug in your laptop, and even the fanciest hotel rooms can still have choppy internet.
But if you book a meeting room at a coworking space, you’re sure to get the most out of the available technology. Remember, these spaces are designed specifically for meetings, so you’ll have most of the tech you need at your disposal.
The conference rooms at Circle Hub have flat-screen TVs, high-speed internet, and printing services. These are important tools for running a smooth presentation, especially if you have a lot of visuals prepared.
Because the meeting rooms are equipped with a huge TV screen and fast internet, they’re also perfect for video conferencing. If you need to take on a call as a team, a meeting room is the best place to do it. No distractions and background noise.
These technologies are extremely useful benefits of meeting rooms. They are also some of the best reasons to run a business from a coworking space in general.
5. It Encourages Team Brainstorming and the Sharing of Ideas
When you’re working in a team, it’s important that you talk to each other and share ideas. Sure, private office suites where everyone has their own desk sound nice. But you can’t brainstorm together efficiently if everyone is in their own world far away from each other. It’s even harder if they have no way of verbalizing their ideas out loud.
One of the benefits of meeting rooms for teams is providing them a place to meet and brainstorm together. The collaboration feels a lot more real when you’re sitting at a table with the rest of your team instead of talking on Slack — or worse, extremely long email threads.
When an entire team sits together in a meeting room, you can have a better flow of creativity. One person can share their idea, and another can add to it to make it bigger ad better. It builds camaraderie and encourages even the most introverted members of the team to speak their minds.
One might argue that brainstorming alone is faster and causes less social anxiety, and that’s absolutely valid. But alternating between brainstorming alone and with a group can help boost the team’s overall performance and output. It’s a break in the routine. So, it helps refresh your mind and increase creativity.
Everyone’s best ideas can be heard and then combined into an excellent project. This boosts productivity and output quality while getting work done faster.
6. It’s Comfortable and Spacious Enough for the Whole Team
Since meeting rooms are meant to be used by large groups, they’re usually very spacious. They’re comfortable to stay in because there are many chairs and a place at the table for everyone. You won’t feel like your entire team is crammed into a tiny room. This is because the rooms are designed with a certain capacity in mind.
This is a far cry from cafés and restaurants, where space for every single person isn’t guaranteed. It can seem very unprofessional to move tables and chairs together at a coffee shop to accommodate your clients. Yikes!
Circle Hub’s meeting rooms are spacious and comfortable to stay in whether your group is small or large. The Northridge location has a room perfect for eight persons. Meanwhile, the Ventura location houses three other meeting rooms, which are suitable for groups with six, ten, or 16 people attending the session.
7. It’s Quieter and More Peaceful to Improve Focus and Productivity
There’s an unspoken consensus to keep to yourself when working at a café or shared space out of respect for those who need peace and quiet. However, these places can still get pretty noisy at peak hours. And when there’s a lot of unnecessary background noise, you can get distracted, which then slows down your work.
One of the benefits of meeting rooms is that they are quieter than common areas. So, if you need to work as a team on a big and tedious that requires your full concentration, booking a meeting room will be wise.
Because a conference room is quieter, you and your teammates will have less trouble hearing each other. And since you guys have the room all to yourselves, no one can interrupt your discussion. That leads to an increase in focus and productivity.
Sure, one of the best benefits of being in a coworking community is that there are so many people you can network with. But there are days when working quietly with just your team is best.
8. You Can Enjoy All Circle Hub Amenities
When you book one of the conference rooms at Circle Hub, you also get access to the coworking space’s amenities.
These include basic amenities like the break room and kitchen, and even the free refreshments given out to everyone working there. But what’s awesome about Circle Hub is that it has all kinds of innovative amenities to encourage work-life balance, like gaming rooms and a fitness center.
When you and your team are finished with your brainstorming session, you can loosen up at any of the amenities. It’s a terrific way to re-energize during breaks or cap off a productive team meeting at the end of the day.
Conclusion
No matter how flexible you are with where you work — at a café, park, library — there’s nothing like a well-equipped conference room to host your meetings and team sessions.
There are many benefits of meeting rooms, from making a good first impression with a client to holding all your company secrets close when discussing them in confidence. It’s also a huge plus for improving your team’s communication skills and rapport. This boosts productivity in the long run.
The best part is that when you book a conference room at Circle Hub, you get to use all the helpful work amenities too. That includes the complimentary refreshments, high-speed internet, break rooms, access to a coworking community, and more.
Want your business to experience all the benefits of meeting rooms? Contact us to book a tour of our conference rooms in our California locations!