The Huddle Room: What It Is, Its Benefits, And Setup Tips [2024]

The rise in hybrid work has brought new trends, including huddle rooms. These relatively small meeting spaces have become increasingly popular in recent years, and for good reason — they support convenient small-group collaboration and offer an improved meeting experience than conventional conference rooms.

Huddle rooms’ focus on innovation, flexibility, and teamwork makes them the perfect addition to modern corporate culture.

But what exactly are these spaces, and how can they benefit the modern workplace? Let’s take a look.

Quick Summary

• Huddle rooms are small meeting rooms, usually 100-150 square feet, designed for meetings with four to six participants.
• The four types of huddle rooms are minimalist, basic, mid-level, and high-end.
• Huddle rooms offer several benefits, including maximizing cost-effectiveness, increasing collaboration, improving focus, and offering multipurpose use.

What Is a Huddle Room?

A huddle room is a small meeting space designed for two to four participants. They often occupy an average space of 100-150 square feet, although their size varies.

Generally, huddle spaces contain comfy chairs, a table, and various decor, such as plants. They also have hardware and software that help facilitate collaboration, such as audio-visual devices and soundproofing equipment. Some companies even install plug-and-play devices to enhance their huddle rooms’ functionality.

What Is the Point of Having a Huddle Room?

You may be wondering why you should invest in a huddle room when you can hold your meetings in a traditional conference room or one of the offices at your workplace. Here are a few reasons:

Offer a Quiet Meeting Environment Away From the Hustle and Bustle

One of the key attributes of huddle rooms is privacy. As such, they provide an intimate atmosphere that encourages team members and employees to participate in them and share ideas actively.

Provide a Versatile Space

Huddle rooms typically have ample space to hold small group meetings and are ideal for hybrid, one-on-one, virtual, and stand-up meetings, demonstrations and brainstorming sessions. They can also be used for conference calls.

Unify Remote and Hybrid Teams

Huddle spaces are fitted with technology such as display screens, audio devices, content-sharing software, and smart cameras that facilitate effective meetings between in-office, hybrid, and virtual teams.

In short, these spaces encourage collaboration and teamwork, no matter where the attendees are.

What Are the Benefits of a Huddle Room?

Here are five of the top perks huddle rooms provide:

Maximize Cost-Effectiveness

Huddle spaces are economical, requiring a smaller area than a regular conference room. You can even set them up in underused spaces in your office. For instance, you can allocate part of the area in an open floor plan to be a huddle room or repurpose an old meeting room into one.

Huddle rooms don’t require a lot of equipment, either — generally just furniture, display screens, audio, and internet connectivity.

Provide Multipurpose Use

Huddle rooms are flexible and suitable for many different collaboration needs. You can use them for various meetings, conference calls, virtual meetings, webinars, interviews, one-on-ones, and project discussions.

Offer Privacy

For a meeting to be productive, it should be held in an environment that allows privacy. Huddle rooms give employees space away from the main office, where they can have confidential conversations.

Improve Collaboration

Huddle spaces offer an intimate atmosphere that encourages team members to actively participate in discussions. These spaces are also fitted with various technologies to facilitate effective virtual or physical meetings.

Promote Focus During Meetings

Meetings held in inappropriate places tend to be unproductive. Designated huddle rooms allow for more concentration than the same conversation in a busy open-plan space would provide.

What Are the Different Types of Huddle Rooms?

Huddle rooms can vary based on different needs. Here are four of the main types:

Minimalist Huddle Rooms

Minimalist huddle rooms are created by adding them to a space within an already existing space. As their name suggests, they include very few items — maybe just a few chairs, a small table, microphones, and speakers (though this is rare).

Employees may use personal devices or collaboration apps to launch a video conference in a minimalist huddle room.

Basic Huddle Rooms

Basic huddle rooms are often integrated into the main office space. They’re more formal and fitted with more technology than minimalist spaces, usually a speaker, a microphone, a display screen, and a collaboration app for content sharing.

Mid-Level Huddle Rooms

Mid-level huddle rooms have even more tech and furniture than basic huddle rooms. You may find LED displays, speaker tables, projectors, telephones, video conferencing cameras, and network connectivity in these spaces.

These huddle rooms may also have technology that enables users to stream content from their personal devices.

High-End Huddle Rooms

High-end huddle rooms have so many tools that they often look like mini boardrooms. They may include wall-mounted digital displays and video conferencing systems to facilitate collaboration.

6 Tips for Creating a Great Huddle Room

Like any other meeting room in an organization, you’ll want to create a great huddle room experience to get the most out of these spaces. Here are some ways to achieve that goal:

Ensure They’re Accessible

Huddle rooms should be set up in areas where employees can easily access them. Placing them at the side of a public open floor ensures accessibility and privacy.

Businesses should also provide employees with guidelines on how and when to use these spaces.

Personalize the Space

How we meet at work has changed. Specifically, meeting spaces have become more casual, which should be reflected in your huddle room.

Design and furnish your huddle room so it’s comfortable and enjoyable to use. A great way to do this is to conduct employee surveys to see what infrastructure and amenities they want included in these spaces.

Don’t forget to name them properly, too.

Soundproof Your Huddle Room

Noise in the workplace can negatively affect employee productivity. Not only that, but it can also lead to a decrease in physiological well-being.

Soundproof your huddle spaces to block out office noise. Doing this will help your team stay focused and productive during meetings.

Make Sure You Have Strong Internet Connectivity

Strong internet connectivity helps streamline communications between in-office and virtual teams. This means your meetings will run seamlessly, regardless of the participants’ location. It’ll also enable participants to retrieve and share data with ease.

Ensure Sufficient Space

While huddle spaces are generally meant to be relatively small, that doesn’t mean they should feel crampy. Make sure you have enough space so attendees don’t have to “squeeze” by furniture or each other — they should be able to move comfortably around the room.

Also, make sure your huddle room has adequate lighting and ventilation.

Provide the Necessary Technology

Make sure you add the following hybrid meeting equipment to your huddle room:

• Display screen: An appropriately sized and positioned display screen is vital to a huddle space.

• Audio device: Invest in an AI-enhanced audio system equipped with sound-blocking capabilities.
• Smart cameras: Install an appropriate number of cameras for the number of meeting participants and for all necessary visual information to be seen, especially if remote employees are attending.
• Content-sharing technology: Add wireless presentation solutions in addition to laptops.
• Power and data ports: Ensure enough power outlets and data ports are in the room to keep all the equipment you need for the meeting powered up.

Elevate Your Office Space with OfficeRnD Workplace

Huddle rooms have become an essential part of the modern workplace, as they help ensure meetings remain collaborative and interactive, even if some of the members join remotely. They should be large enough and fitted with the right equipment and technology to facilitate productive meetings for four to six in-person attendees.

To manage your huddle rooms and office space properly, you need the right software. This is where OfficeRnD Workplace can help you.

It’s a powerful, yet, very easy-to-use hybrid work management solution that allows you to:

• Book desks and rooms on a beautiful office map
• Entice people to come to the office for the moments that matter
• Coordinate hybrid work schedules
• Optimize office space based on data
• …and much more

Want to take a look? Click here to start for free with OfficeRnD Workplace.

FAQ

What is a Huddle Office?

A “Huddle Office” or a huddle room refers to a small, often enclosed space in a workplace designed for quick, informal meetings or private work sessions. These areas typically accommodate small groups and are equipped with essential communication technologies like video conferencing systems. The design promotes efficiency and minimal disruption to the broader office environment, making it ideal for short discussions, one-on-one meetings, or focused solo work without the need for a full-sized conference room.

What’s the Purpose of a Huddle Room?

A huddle room is a space for holding small group meetings of four to six in-person attendees. It offers a quiet area, perfect for meetings that involve confidential information or require more focus.

What’s the Difference Between a Huddle Room and a Boardroom?

The primary difference between a boardroom and a huddle room is their sizes. Boardrooms are typically larger and can accommodate more meeting participants than huddle rooms.

What’s the Typical Size of a Huddle Room?

A huddle room is spacious enough to accommodate four to six people. While the ideal size varies depending on the size of the office, 100-150 square feet is common.