Planning Your Conference Room Starts with the Conference Table

For a long time, the conference room has become an altar of sorts for any organization. Most employees dread going there because it sounds so serious. The conference room is where the major decisions take place.

And for a long time, the conference room is dominated by a long table at the center surrounded by several chairs. But as the function and purpose of conference rooms changed over time, so did the need for a custom conference table.

You can’t fault employees from dreading meetings. On average, 11,000,000 meetings are conducted in the US each day. In another research, the average employee attends about 60 meetings per month. The least you can do as an organization is to design your conference room in such a way that people don’t associate it with the grind.

The Evolving Boardroom

It’s wrong to say that the conference room is past its prime. What happened, however, is that the boardroom has evolved.

Several factors triggered this evolution, but the main reasons are flexible work schedules, video conferencing, remote work, HR software apps, and the Internet. Software apps allow supervisors to manage and track the performance of each employee. Each worker can also make their daily reports on their mobile devices, which make meetings superfluous.

CEOs and managers can also call virtual meetings all the time, not just with each employee but the entire team.

That means you have to change your mindset of what a traditional conference room looks like. While virtual meetings are convenient and necessary, they shouldn’t preclude you from setting a regular face-to-face meeting.

Before You Design Your Conference Room

1. Determine the primary function of your conference room. Do you intend it to function as a place to hold important, regular meetings? A long conference table will do. Do you sometimes hold training workshops in the room? A custom conference table that can be split into sections is the ideal choice, so teams can huddle in different corners.
2. Consider the space of the room. Most conference tables you buy off the shelf have similar dimensions. If you have a smaller space, the best option is a handcraft a custom conference table to maximize the area.
3. Do you do a lot of video conferencing? Modular tables can easily be moved around during a video conference meeting. A long conference table might not offer maximum visibility, especially for employees sitting far away from the screen.
4. Are you using the conference table for other purposes? The modern conference table has become a place where employees mingle and catch up on each other’s lives. That is true for organizations where employees go out on the field for days or weeks on end.

A multipurpose conference table can be used as a place to eat, watch presentations, have deep conversations, and training. If you are going to eat at the table, make sure you choose wood with a thick protective finish, as well as scratch and heat-resistant.

For all your handcrafted conference table needs, Lighthouse Woodworks is your best choice. Lighthouse Woodworks is a premier maker of handcrafted tables and furniture in East Boston.

Image Credits: Nastuh Abootalebi