What Is the Most Effective Way to Run a Hybrid Meeting?

Everyone who has ever phoned into a workplace meeting has come to the obvious conclusion that participating is frequently more trouble than it is worth. It’s either too noisy, or the meeting hosts can’t hear you, or they’re not paying attention to those that call in.As hybrid meetings become the new standard this year, things aren’t going to get any better. This is a problem because all indications — and research — point to hybrid work becoming the new normal.

Businesses may soon realise that hybrid meetings are frequently more chaotic than those in which all participants are present in person. Is this a scene you’ve seen before? You’re video conferencing into a meeting where a few onsite attendees are standing at a whiteboard with their backs to the camera, potentially speaking in a foreign language to one another. It’s difficult to say. You’d turn on captioning if this were Netflix. Other disinterested team members are multitasking off-camera in the room. After the scheduled video conference concludes, the onsite parties continue to discuss and reach a new agreement.

What makes a great hybrid meeting?

Getting a word in edgewise during meetings is difficult for remote workers, especially when onsite workers don’t see what they see and others who call in while commuting don’t see anything (except for the road, we hope). These sessions can become difficult to follow or even ineffective. To stay engaged as a remote worker, you must put in a lot of effort. To be present and relevant, you must work far harder than onsite participants. You must activate your video. When people walk into the room, you must greet them by name.

Doesn’t that sound like a lot of work? But what if everyone was in the same boat, even though they were in the conference room instead of connected from a nearby cafe? To reach the same level of “presence” in the conference, everyone, not just those working from home, may need to use a laptop.

We’ll also test another growing best practise: designating one person to pay attention to distant workers and assist them in participating in hybrid meetings. We don’t mean “add pressure to contribute” when we say “enable,” but rather “identify openings for discussion.” Even a simple show of hands might serve to achieve consensus or inspire lively debate.

Also, make sure that meetings are scheduled in your messaging app so that everyone is aware of what’s going on, and that the meeting’s follow-up is included in the message thread. Remote workers, as well as anyone who misses the meeting, will always be up to date.

Collaborative technologies can help boost team engagement in this area. Different forms of break-out meeting rooms can be made possible by technology, allowing for 1:1 or small group meetings that can help promote productivity, boost camaraderie, and improve wellbeing.

What about those who are constantly on the go during meetings? What can we do to get them more involved? Some clever connectivity upgrades may also aid participants who need to be mobile during meetings. It will be crucial to be able to easily switch meeting connections between phones and computers as needed, without having to rejoin or break an ongoing meeting.

Human interconnectedness

It takes a combination of UX design, engaging product features, training, meeting best practises, and individuals learning how to do interesting things with the platform to enable effective hybrid meetings. We need to be laser-focused on connecting our minds and creating a connected culture. We must satisfy all of the functional, social, and emotional jobs required to execute effective hybrid meetings from a product standpoint. To accomplish our connectedness vision, we must implement these jobs in a fun and engaging way. We never want somebody to feel as though they aren’t being heard or understood during a meeting.

It will take some time, patience, and process change to improve hybrid meetings. Which of these modifications would you like to see in order to make hybrid meetings at your organisation more engaging and productive?