Keeping staff and visitors safe as we return to the office will place a big demand on office space; no more so than in the meeting room

A number of conflicting issues are becoming apparent:

• Not all staff will return to the office immediately. Shift patterns and flexible working are likely to be introduced and some staff may never return; preferring to work remotely. So keeping in touch with all members of your team will create a demand for more meeting space
• Due to social distancing rules, it will no longer be possible for a number of workers to huddle round a laptop or desktop screen so meeting rooms with a large screen will be in greater demand
• But…social distancing will also mean that fewer participants will be able to gather safely in the meeting room

How can this be resolved? One simple thing that can be done immediately to mitigate the problem would be to stop wasting space in the current meeting rooms.

The right choice of room video camera can have a significantly positive impact on the efficient use of floor space.

Many video rooms employ legacy pan, tilt, zoom (PTZ) cameras with a field-of-view of around 90° or less. This restricted angle of visibility imposes a gap between the camera/display and the room table to ensure participants closest to the camera are in shot; typically producing around 40 sq. ft. (~4m²) of wasted floorspace.

The Jabra PanaCast’s distortion-free, wide field-of-view opens up the room and creates more space for social distancing reducing this wasted floor space to zero. There’s more on this here: http://bit.ly/space_calc

As we cautiously return to the office, wasted space in the meeting room is not only a real estate cost issue but is now an urgent matter of workers’ health and welfare.

Using the Jabra PanaCast camera will allow more people to use a meeting room while still maintaining essential social distancing.