Hybrid work and the role of meeting rooms

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the culture of work has changed fundamentally: a large proportion of teams now work from home, and at many companies being in the office has shrunk to a few days, or a few occasions, a week. We see that change in our rooms day after day: more and more teams book with us who have no permanent office — or no longer have one — yet still need somewhere to sit down together in person on a regular basis. In this article we look at what hybrid work means from the point of view of meeting rooms, and how it is worth rethinking the role of the office.

Your own office is harder and harder to justify

When a team meets in person only a few times a week, a permanent office — with its rent, utilities, cleaning and running costs — stands empty most of the time. More and more small businesses, start-ups and freelancers reach the same conclusion: rather than carry a fixed cost, it is worth paying only for what you actually use.

That is how hiring a room by the hour has come into its own, providing a professional setting for exactly the hours when people meet face to face. 2nd Space pricing is built on the same logic: hourly rates run between 2,800 and 4,000 HUF depending on the room, with an automatic discount on longer bookings — 12% from four hours, 23–24% at eight hours, and as much as 26–28% above ten. A team that gets together a few times a month pays only for those hours — and still gets a fully equipped meeting room.

The new role of the face-to-face meeting: rarer, but worth more

In the hybrid model the face-to-face meeting has not disappeared — it has been revalued. When a team does get together, there is now an explicit reason for it: quarterly planning, a client negotiation, a workshop, a difficult decision that nobody wants to take over a video call. These occasions are rarer, so they have to deliver more — and the setting has to play its part in that.

The kitchen table and the crowded café were fine as a temporary solution; in the long run they are a competitive disadvantage. Holding a client negotiation in a noisy space, or running a strategy session from the living room over a video call — both make the outcome worse. A well-chosen meeting room, by contrast, gives the occasion a frame: the team steps out of its usual surroundings and feels, from the moment it arrives, that this day is not like the others.

What should you expect from a hybrid-friendly room?

The first rule of a hybrid meeting is that the person joining online is an equal participant. Three things are needed for that: a large screen on which the remote colleague is clearly visible to everyone; a simple connection, so that starting the call does not swallow the first ten minutes; and stable, fast internet that can carry several video connections at once. In our rooms that means a 55-inch TV, an HDMI cable left ready, and Wi-Fi running at 1000 Mbps.

Quiet matters just as much: a live microphone transmits every background noise. From an echoing room full of traffic noise a call is tiring even with the best equipment — which is why we chose rooms that face the street and yet are notably quiet. In a longer hybrid workshop the comfort of the people in the room counts too: air conditioning, natural light, comfortable seating — without those, the second half of the day is no longer about the subject.

The self-service model: flexibility extended

The essence of hybrid work is flexibility — and the venue should offer it too. Traditional office leasing is rigid: a long-term contract and a fixed monthly cost, even when the space is standing empty. The self-service model, by contrast, works the way hybrid work itself does: the team comes when it fits their calendar.

In practice, with us it looks like this: booking and payment happen entirely online, the entrance and room codes arrive with the confirmation straight away, and there is no reception desk and no key to collect. The rooms can be used every day — weekends included — between 7:00 and 21:00, and cancellation is free up to 24 hours before the booked time. An early-morning discussion before the day starts, an evening workshop after work, a Saturday planning day: all of it fits, with nothing to arrange with a porter.

What a hybrid day looks like in practice

Take a typical example from our own rooms: a team of six, two of whom work from another city. The team holds a full-day planning session once a quarter and a morning status meeting once a month. For the planning day they book the larger New York room, with its sofa, from 9:00 to 17:00 — the two remote colleagues join by video on the 55-inch screen for part of the day, and in the afternoon block those in the room carry on at the whiteboard. For the monthly status meeting, two hours in Washington or London is enough.

The point is in the pattern: the team does not maintain an office in order to use it a few times a month — the space is exactly as big as the task needs, exactly when the task needs it. Booking and payment happen online, entry is by code, and if something comes up, cancellation is free up to 24 hours before the booked time.

What does all this cost? A quick calculation

Let us stay with the example above. The monthly two-hour status meeting in the London room costs 2 × 2,800 at list price, that is 5,600 HUF. The full-day, eight-hour planning session in the New York room would be 8 × 3,900 HUF at list price, but a duration discount of 23–24% already applies at eight hours, so the actual cost is roughly 24,000 HUF. You will find the detailed discount bands on the prices page. Over a year, in this example, the team's entire meeting infrastructure comes to around 160,000 HUF — and the team always gets a fully equipped, air-conditioned space, with no utilities or maintenance to think about.

Who gains the most from it?

In our experience this model gives the most to three groups. Remote teams who have no office but want to sit down together in person once or twice a month. Freelancers and consultants who would rather receive their clients in a professional setting than in a café. And companies that do have an office, but not enough meeting rooms in it — or none presentable enough — and so hire a separate space for the occasions that matter.

In summary

Hybrid work has not abolished the role of the meeting room — it has transformed it. Rarer but more valuable face-to-face meetings call for well-equipped spaces that are flexibly available, without unnecessary fixed costs. For anyone who finds that balance, the hybrid model is not a compromise but an advantage. If you would like to try it, see when our rooms are free — you can browse without registering, and every booking comes with an instant code, so you let yourself in as if the space were your own.