When you think about the best place to hold an office meeting, you’re likely picturing a conference room. It probably features one of those long, oval tables, a dozen chairs, and a plethora of amenities, such as a coffee machine and video projector.
What if we told you, though, that modern meetings can be just as effective when held in a so-called “huddle room”? If you’re wondering what huddle rooms are and what benefits you can achieve from using one for your workspace, then keep reading.
What is a huddle room?
53% of US people working in a hybrid way and 14% working from home, it’s safe to say that the modern workplace has changed significantly in the past few years.
While these flexible work arrangements were already becoming quite popular, the COVID-19 pandemic provided the perfect opportunity to test them—with overall satisfactory results and boosting collaboration in the workplace.
And with fewer people sitting in offices around the world, workspaces have also undergone many changes as a result, with the introduction of arrangements such as hot desking and—you’ve guessed it—huddle rooms.
But what are huddle rooms, exactly? As the name itself suggests, a huddle room is a relatively small room within a physical office that provides a quiet, private environment where only a few people can gather and work.
Generally, these rooms are located in several areas of an office building, usually quite close to workstations and, therefore, easy to access at any time.
While the typical conference room needs to be booked in advance, huddle rooms offer the flexibility to gather a small group of people spontaneously, whenever the need arises, and provide the focus needed to tackle a specific topic or project.
Huddle rooms may not boast the high-end amenities of some conference rooms, but they’re still a great way to connect both in-house and remote teams. Particularly as there are also virtual team huddle rooms, which help imitate the spontaneous conversations you would have in an office by allowing you to quickly hop in and out of an audio or video call.
In a nutshell, an effective huddle room can be the perfect solution for work meetings in the hybrid working era.
Huddle rooms: What are the main challenges?
As we’re about to find out, there are many benefits to adding a huddle room to your office. However, huddle rooms also come with their challenges.
For example, if you regularly host meetings that require using high-tech equipment or the attendance of a large number of people, the traditional conference room might still be your best bet.
Because you’re basically only relying on a laptop and a good internet connection, huddle rooms may also not always offer high-quality video or audio.
Lastly, if you’re using huddle rooms predominantly to communicate with remote workers, you’ll need to find ways to keep them engaged by interacting with them and making them feel part of the conversation, or they’ll lose interest, and the benefits of huddle rooms will be lost.
Remember, streamlining organizational communication should always be one of your top priorities—particularly if you’re employing in-house and remote workers—so you must ensure that your huddle room is adequately set up before your employees start using it.
Huddle rooms: 8 reasons to implement one for better collaboration at work
With the main challenges clarified, it’s now time to take a closer look at eight of the main benefits of huddle rooms.
1. They are cost-effective and easy to set up
As you might imagine, setting up a huddle room is a much simpler and more affordable task than building, equipping, and maintaining a traditional conference room, which may also include the addition of high-end AI tools, such as AI virtual assistant.
All you really need is a small room in your office building that’s not currently being used. Add a table and a few chairs, and make sure the internet connection there is good. Then your huddle room is ready to go.
2. They enhance privacy
When meetings happen in large rooms with many people, privacy tends to get a bit lost. Some people may even feel intimidated, which, in turn, hampers their ability to participate in the conversation.
Huddle rooms, on the other hand, are a safe space to share ideas and perspectives, giving participants the opportunity to have more in-depth and confidential conversations—whether they want to discuss RPO models or issues with a particular person within the company.
3. They boost focus and productivity
As a follow-up to our previous point, it’s also safe to say that huddle spaces can enhance the focus and productivity of the teams using them.
Precisely because huddle rooms allow for fewer distractions—and fewer people can access them at the same time—they can help participants increase attention spans and concentration levels.
4. They decrease isolation and promote teamwork
One of the most challenging things about being a remote worker is the sense of isolation that these people can feel from time to time. After all, we’re social creatures, and working from home day in and day out can feel lonely.
With their cozier, more personable atmosphere, huddle rooms offer in-house teams the opportunity to connect, interact, and collaborate with remote colleagues, fostering both personal and professional bonds.
5. They make better use of office space
We mentioned it earlier, but it bears repeating: huddle rooms don’t need huge amounts of space to be set up.
Unlike regular conference rooms that take up a lot of square footage and can, sometimes, be left empty for hours, huddle rooms can be set up pretty much anywhere throughout the office building.
A small, unused room can work great for this purpose, as well as breaking up the main office layout into several huddle rooms. As a result, office managers can make much more efficient use of all the available space.
6. They improve collaboration and flexibility
It should be clear by now that huddle rooms are the definition of flexibility. Easy to set up and run, these rooms boast the versatility and adaptability that larger conference rooms will never have.
Employees feel less intimidated by huddle rooms compared to much more official-looking conference rooms, and, therefore, they’re more likely to use them often.
This, in turn, promotes better collaboration between employees and teams, regardless of hierarchy and other barriers that may hinder open communication and knowledge-sharing.
7. They are extremely versatile
Huddle rooms are probably not ideal for holding long meetings that require the participation of a lot of people, but this doesn’t mean that they’re not versatile.
Being so flexible and informal also makes huddle rooms extremely adaptable to the situation they’re used for.
Need to get together with a couple of teammates for a quick catch-up or brainstorming session? Want to set aside 30 minutes to finish that tricky project that calls for a lot of focus?
Feel like opening up to your manager about a personal issue that might be negatively affecting your performance at work?
Huddle rooms are the perfect choice for all these scenarios and many more.
8. They offer better availability and reliability
Thanks to their huge flexibility and relaxed, informal nature, huddle rooms also offer much more availability and reliability than standard conference rooms. This is especially true if you’ve noticed that the conference rooms in your office building tend to get booked up quite quickly, which makes it almost impossible to get the space for you and your team.
Huddle rooms, on the other hand, are specifically designed to hold short and small gatherings, which means they have a higher turnover. As a result, it’s easier to find one that’s available.
Wrapping up: huddle rooms and their advantages
In today’s hybrid workplaces, the standard conference room is slowly giving way to a much more flexible, informal, and collaboration-boosting approach: the huddle room.
As we’ve seen in this article, adding one (or more) huddle rooms to your office can generate a wide array of benefits—from improved communication between in-house and remote employees to the ability to optimize office space.
It’s time to start exploring huddle rooms and their advantages for your modern workspace.
FAQs
What is a huddle room?
Generally speaking, a huddle room is a small meeting room that holds a maximum of four people. While their size can vary slightly, huddle rooms are usually around 100-150 square feet.
What are the main purposes of a huddle room?
Huddle rooms can be used for a wide range of purposes. For example, they can provide a private space for two employees to discuss a confidential issue whenever the need arises without having to book a larger conference room.
Similarly, huddle rooms can also be used to get in-house and remote participants together in an informal, focused, and collaborative workspace. Employees can also use a huddle room to tackle a particularly tricky project or topic that requires maximum focus, as it removes all distractions and helps boost concentration.
Can you still have a conference room if you have a huddle room?
Of course. The presence of one room type doesn’t absolutely negate the possibility of having the other type as well. Just bear in mind that their uses, goals, benefits, and challenges are very different.
Updated Jun 24, 2025
