Your office isn’t what you think. Part two: meeting rooms.

In the first part of this three-blog series, we exposed the misconception that people need to have their own desk at work. In this part, we’ve used the same data – having surveyed over 14,000 employees, conducted in-depth interviews with more than 300 department heads and observed nearly 22,000 desks – to reveal:

Misconception #2: “I can never get a meeting room.”

In our experience, one of the most common complaints that people have about their workplace is that a lack of meeting rooms hinders their ability to have confidential discussions. They waste time meandering around their workspace looking for suitable, available meeting spaces. 

One reason for this discrepancy is that most people block book meeting rooms and then don’t use them. 

In most offices there isn’t a shortage of meeting rooms, but there is a misalignment between the meeting room size and the size of the actual meeting taking place.

So what do people use meeting rooms for? To have confidential conversations, collaborate on projects, present to team members and clients, and conduct training sessions. However, there are other types of space that may better support some of these activities. Providing people with a range of meeting spaces allows them to choose one that best suits their specific needs.

Our conclusion? Most businesses do have enough meeting space. It's just not provisioned correctly and, in reality, most meetings don’t need a meeting room.

For more common misconceptions, here are misconception #1 and misconception #3.