In today’s fast-paced work environment, a fun meeting room isn’t just a luxury – it’s a necessity for fostering collaboration and driving innovation. The right meeting room design can transform dull, unproductive sessions into engaging, idea-generating hubs that inspire your team and reflect the energy of your company culture.
Right now, we are seeing a shift away from traditional boardrooms and towards informal meeting spaces – including collaboration zones, meeting spaces with armchairs and tables, and meeting rooms with standing tables.
Studies have shown that informal meeting spaces can help boost creativity, as well as encouraging collaboration amongst teams and improving employee engagement.
Overall, informal meeting spaces and rooms create a relaxed atmosphere where flexible working is prioritised.
In this article, we’ll take you through some office meeting room ideas to provide employees with a fun, informal and creative space.
Decoration and Design
Colours and Themes
Choosing the right colour scheme for your meeting room can have a profound impact on employee mood, creativity, and overall engagement, as different hues evoke specific psychological responses that can either stimulate or calm the mind.
For example, while blue promotes calmness and focus and green provides a sense of balance and relaxation, purple can prompt inspiration and imagination and orange can foster warmth and enthusiasm.
The colour you choose also needs to tie in with the theme of your office overall, or at least the theme of the room.
If you’re aiming for a biophilic design, for example – bringing the outside in with elements of nature – a neutral white or creativity-inspiring green might go well. Alternatively, if you want your meeting room to make an impact and be fun, red might be the best colour.
These are some of the options when it comes to choosing the colour or theme of your meeting room.
Artwork and Accessories
When it comes to decorating your office meeting room, artwork and accessories can make a big difference.
Incorporating pieces from local artists, for example, or murals, can help add personality to the space, as well as reflecting your brand values. Depending on the art you use, this can also impact employees’ moods and productivity levels.
When it comes to accessories, having plants and greenery in your meeting area can add a touch of fun, especially bright flowers or everyone’s favourite office plants, succulents and cacti.
On-desk accessories like brightly-coloured notebooks or ornaments which fit the room’s style also work well when you’re looking to create a fun and informal atmosphere for your meeting room.
The Walls in your Meeting Room
Interactive Wall Elements
Another essential part of your meeting room is the walls. As well as painting them in the right colour, you can also add interactive elements like chalkboards or whiteboards for employees to use during brainstorming sessions.
In many companies, meetings are all about coming up with ideas and being creative, which is enabled through this design.
Getting employees to write on the walls during brainstorming meetings is a great way to foster a fun and informal environment through design.
Cork boards are also a good addition to meeting rooms, as people can put up notes and create visual plans during their meetings.
These ideas are a good place to start when it comes to adding interactive wall elements to make your meeting room fun, informal and creative.
Acoustic Treatments
In creative spaces – and meeting rooms in particular – soundproofing is essential.
Soundproofing ensures that any sensitive information shared in a meeting room doesn’t make it outside of that room, which is important no matter where you are, whether it’s a large corporate office or a small startup.
In addition, when people know that no one else around them is listening – outside of the meeting room that is – they’re far more likely to unleash their full creativity without worrying about judgement and the opinions of others.
Also, acoustic panels can also serve as decor depending on the style you’re aiming to achieve in your meeting room.
Soundproofing panels can come in a variety of shapes and styles, meaning they can add aesthetic value to your meeting room as well as practical value.
Lighting in your Meeting Room
When deciding on the lighting to choose for your meeting room, it’s always a good idea to maximise natural light.
Some of the ways you can do this include:
- Using glass walls and partitions to allow natural light to flow into the meeting room from other areas
- Building meeting rooms near windows, if you’re still in the process of adding a meeting room to your current office layout
- Choosing light and reflective wall colours to amplify the brightness of your room and make the space feel bigger
However, this can be difficult to achieve, especially in London where you might be facing other buildings, thus blocking out the sun.
In this situation, it’s a good idea to look into artificial lighting options which give the space a warm and inviting feel, mimicking the effect of natural lighting.
For example, you could use circadian rhythm lighting. This reflects the body’s natural 24-hour cycle which influences certain physiological processes, such as sleep-wake cycles, hormone release, and body temperature regulation.
Circadian rhythm lighting offers cooler light in the morning and warmer light in the evening, thus mimicking the natural light outside.
This type of lighting is known to improve alertness and productivity, as well as enhancing mood and wellbeing and reducing eye-strain for employees, making it ideal for meeting rooms and offices in general.
Furniture in your Meeting Room
Flexible and Modular Furniture
Modular furniture is essential when creating a fun, creative and informal meeting room or space.
Versatile and modular furniture can be rearranged to suit any type of working and meeting style, whether that’s a lecture layout for when someone is giving a presentation or a traditional boardroom style for a more formal meeting – or if the tables and chairs are cleared for an open floor. With this type of furniture in your office meeting room or space, the possibilities are endless.
Modular furniture is also ideal for smaller workspaces, in which every square metre needs to be used, as it is flexible and can be set up in a variety of ways to suit the space.
So, if you’re looking to create a flexible and informal meeting room or space, modular furniture could be the best option.
Comfortable Seating Options
When choosing the furniture for your meeting room, it’s important to remember how important comfort is, and how much it can impact the productivity, wellbeing, and physical health of employees.
There are lots of options for fun and informal meeting room seating, from bean bags to lounge chairs and more. When making these choices, it’s essential to discuss this with employees to see which type of seating suits them best.
For example, while some might enjoy sinking into a bean bag, it might not be ideal for those who suffer with back problems.
In addition, while some employees might enjoy a lounge chair, others may prefer to work in a more upright position.
This is why having a few different seating options to suit the different needs of your employees is essential.
So, as we’ve seen above, furniture is an essential part of creating a fun, informal and creative office meeting room.
Technology in your Meeting Room
The final thing we’ve got on our list when it comes to creating a fun and creative meeting room is using the right technology.
Here are a few of the essential pieces of equipment and technology you should have in your meeting room:
- A phone
- A smartboard or television with remotes
- Plug sockets and USB sockets for people to charge their devices
- Video conferencing technology
- A microphone and camera
- Project management tools and other essential apps
There are a few other things you can include in your meeting room or space to ensure it’s fun, informal and creative, including bluetooth speakers, interactive displays and adaptable lighting.
Bluetooth speakers will enable people to play their choice of music during meetings if allowed, while interactive displays can help set the mood and can encourage collaboration. In addition, with adaptable lighting in the meeting room, employees will be able to change the mood of the room by choosing certain colours and light temperature.
Creating the Perfect Office Meeting Room
To conclude, creating a fun, informal, and creative meeting space is essential for enhancing employee productivity and collaboration, reflecting the evolving needs of today’s dynamic work environment.
We’ve walked you through some of the ways you can achieve this, including decoration and design, choice of furniture, and integration of technology.
When implementing these ideas in your own office meeting room, it’s important to embrace the informality. Setting up informal meeting spaces and rooms encourages open dialogue and creativity and enhances employee productivity and wellbeing.
It’s also important to get employee feedback, to ensure everyone is happy and feeling at their most productive and creative while they’re in the office’s meeting rooms.