Key Takeaways
- Modern workplace technology should be designed around how employees actually work rather than simply adding the newest available hardware or software.
- Technology friction often appears through wasted meeting time, underused spaces, recurring support issues, and employees finding workarounds instead of using provided systems.
- Adding more technology to a fragmented workplace environment can increase complexity unless solutions are selected as part of a coherent long-term strategy.
- Successful workplace technology investments prioritize user experience, interoperability, consistent performance, installation, and ongoing technical support.
- Businesses can prepare for future growth by proactively planning collaboration spaces around changing workforce needs, rather than replacing equipment only when problems arise.
Work has changed more in the last five years than it did in the two decades before them.
Hybrid schedules have stopped being a pandemic-era experiment; they’re now the ordinary rhythm of the week for millions of professionals. AI is a regular presence in the meeting itself, taking notes and producing summaries. It has also moved into how meeting rooms are designed, controlled, and monitored.
Perhaps most importantly, team members are increasingly aware of the difference between workplace technology that supports them and workplace technology that doesn’t. After all, many of them have spent the last several years setting up their own home offices.
These factors are driving competitive businesses to adapt. The problem is that not every leader understands what adapting really entails.
Modernizing takes more than technology procurement: companies need a strategic approach
I’ve met business leaders who assume the easiest way to stay ahead of changing work trends is to simply buy the latest technology released by brands they already know. This is an oversimplification, and it’s one that often carries significant costs for businesses.
If you simply ask a vendor to recommend new AV equipment whenever a meeting room starts to feel dated and buy whatever they suggest, you’re going to make them a lot of money. But you’re not necessarily going to acquire a solution that supports your team’s established workflows or functions smoothly within your spaces. The likely end results are adoption problems, low usage, and disappointing ROI.
This is not a problem you can solve by simply throwing money at it. What usually needs to change first is the way technology decisions are made at your organization.
This can be a bit of a rabbit hole – but as a first step, here are three questions I encourage every business owner to ask before upgrading their collaboration technology:
- Are your spaces already designed around the tasks your team members need to accomplish? If not, this is where you need to start before even thinking about new hardware or meeting platforms.
- How will you install any new technology you purchase? Ideally, this should be handled by experts who have done their research on how your team will use it.
- Do you have ongoing support in place to keep the experience consistent once the installation is complete? If not, your new solution is going to hit major hurdles the first time there’s a technical problem.
Buying the newest thing a vendor recommends doesn’t solve any of these challenges. That’s why so many expensive upgrades produce so little in the way of visible improvement, and why finding solutions that deliver measurable value takes a more involved approach.
Common signs of workplace technology friction
It’s not always easy to tell when you’re being underserved by your current meeting spaces, audio-visual equipment, meeting platforms, or other hybrid work technologies. That’s because the cost is usually paid in wasted minutes rather than dollars – at first. And since no one wants to be blamed for wasting time, this kind of problem often goes unreported.
But there are telltale signs of a hybrid workplace where team members are silently struggling. Look for the pattern instead of the incident:
- Meetings that begin with two or three minutes of hunting for the right cable, input, or remote.
- Uneven use of meeting spaces. For example, one room everyone competes to book while two others always sit unused.
- People bringing their laptops into a fully equipped room and joining from those devices because it’s quicker than using what you’ve provided.
- Remote participants frequently asking for things to be repeated, or going quiet in meetings altogether.
- The same support ticket appearing from the same space every few weeks.
- Teams choosing a long message thread over a short call because the setup isn’t worth the trouble.
Individually, these signs might look trivial. But collectively, they tell you that people have stopped trusting the technology and started working around it, which is the point at which your investment stops earning anything back.
Resist the urge to throw more money at the problem
The instinctive response to friction is to add something: another platform or piece of equipment that promises to tie the others together. This usually exacerbates the problem, because it means spending more money and potentially making your environment even more complicated.
Most growing companies don’t arrive at a messy collaboration environment through a single bad decision. They arrive there through a series of choices that each felt reasonable at the time because they were intended to solve an immediate need. But this creates a patchwork of systems with no long-term logic holding them together. Team members end up with platforms that don’t play nicely with each other and meeting experiences that diverge uncomfortably from one space to the next.
In most of the cases I’ve seen, that kind of inconsistency is what people are actually complaining about when they say their workplace technology is outdated. And internal IT teams often lack the resources or available time to address these challenges on top of their other responsibilities, so nothing gets done and the friction continues.
Don’t just spend on hardware; invest in user experience
Your goal as a leader is to create spaces where all of your team members can collaborate seamlessly – whether they’re in huddle spaces, boardrooms, or their home offices.
That means looking past the feature list on whatever new solution a vendor pitched you and considering the needs of the humans who depend on your technology to do their work.
Will they be able to join meetings without friction from each of your spaces and when working remotely? Will they be able to share content between different collaboration tools without being frustrated by interoperability issues? Do you have a way to verify device settings and reset their defaults between meetings so that user experience remains consistent over time? Who will you call for help when something doesn’t work as anticipated, and what kind of support will they provide?
These are the questions you need to answer before you can invest in a solution with confidence that your people will actually use it. The answers aren’t always easy to find, which is the single best argument for working with experts from the start instead of simply buying new tech on the perceived strength of a vendor’s suggestion.
Planning for the stage after this one
If you expect your organization to keep growing while the nature of work continues to evolve, here’s the best advice I can give you:
You need a better strategy than simply replacing the expensive AV equipment in your current meeting spaces whenever a supplier has something new to sell. You need an informed approach to rethinking those spaces so you can make cost-efficient investments in technology that expands what your team can achieve. It’s the difference between surviving and scaling.
Successful companies tend to be proactive about planning these upgrades, aligning stakeholders and defining how spaces will actually be used before ordering hardware or buying licenses. The companies that struggle are the ones who discover too late that their expensive piecemeal upgrades are sitting unused by confused or frustrated team members.
Ask yourself what AV solutions your meeting rooms would need if you were to double your revenue, headcount, or corporate real estate portfolio. Contact a consultant if you don’t know the answer. There’s no way to avoid doing the research, but there are experts who can give you the benefit of their experience.
It’s not always about what you buy today. It’s about what your team can use it to accomplish tomorrow.
FAQs
Why is workplace technology strategy important?
A workplace technology strategy ensures that collaboration tools, meeting spaces, and AV systems support the way employees actually work. Without a strategic approach, businesses can spend heavily on solutions that are difficult to use, poorly integrated, or underutilized.
What are common signs that workplace technology is not working effectively?
Warning signs include meetings starting late because employees are troubleshooting equipment, meeting rooms being unevenly used, recurring support tickets, and remote participants struggling to hear or participate. Employees using personal laptops or avoiding meetings because the technology is inconvenient are also indicators of workplace technology friction.
Should businesses simply buy the latest workplace technology?
Buying the newest hardware or software does not necessarily address the underlying problems in a workplace technology environment. Businesses should first understand their workflows, space requirements, interoperability needs, installation considerations, and ongoing support requirements before making technology purchases.
Why is user experience important when upgrading workplace technology?
Even technically advanced workplace systems provide little value if employees find them difficult or frustrating to use. Consistent experiences across meeting rooms, collaboration platforms, and remote work environments can encourage adoption and help businesses achieve a better return on their technology investments.
How can companies prepare their workplace technology for future growth?
Companies should consider how their meeting spaces and collaboration systems will need to function as revenue, headcount, and office requirements grow. Planning upgrades proactively and involving relevant stakeholders before purchasing hardware or software can help organizations make more scalable and cost-efficient technology investments.