How To Hold Hybrid Meetings Where Everyone Stays Engaged

"Meetings are a staple of office life, despite the fact that no one can seem to get them right. Here's how to run meetings that are engaging, purposeful and productive. '(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- As working from home has run into post-pandemic pressure to return to the office, a Frankenstein has been born: the hybrid meeting, stitched together from people on Zoom or Teams trying to find common ground with colleagues in a conference room at HQ. The creature remains misunderstood by meeting leaders and attendees alike. “Individuals who attend remotely feel somewhat marginalized,” says Steven Rogelberg, professor of organizational science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and author of the forthcoming He recalls the widespread apprehension about fully remote meetings before the pandemic made them a fixture of modern work. Now many people have similar misgivings about hybrid meetings. It’s all about “setting it up where everybody is participating on equal footing,” says Anita Woolley, a Carnegie Mellon University professor of organizational behavior. But striking the right balance between in-person and remote engagement is hard, complicated by return-to-office mandates that have some workers dialing in more than others. We asked experts how managers and employees can deal with Zoom-induced frustrations and make hybrid work … work..Tips and Tricks for Running a Meeting'To be (hybrid) or not to be? If you’re deciding whether to go fully remote or try a hybrid, experts say remote is best—even if that means joining a video call from the office. “Virtual meetings are inherently more democratic,” says Rogelberg, citing digital whiteboards, voting mechanisms and lack of “head of table” effects. More senior executives showing up at the office while the grunts toil from the dining room table or vice versa can “reinforce negative social dynamics,” Woolley says. But if hybrid is the only option, don’t worry there are ways to make it effective. “The leader just has to take care of the in-person audience as well as the one up on the wall,” says Maureen Taylor, co-founder of SNP, a leadership communications firm.What’s a hybrid meeting must-have? To ensure remote attendees can fully participate, it’s good to have a facilitator who solicits input, irons out technical blips and reads chats aloud. If hybrids are to be a big part of the work mix, you should also invest in technology, such as 360-degree conference cameras, quality speakers and multidirectional microphones so participants can clearly see and hear one another. Solo ideation has been proven to be more effective than group brainstorming, according to a study published in , so it’s good to allow breaks for participants to focus on the problem at hand. Another tip for staying on track: “I’m a big fan of organizing your agenda as a set of questions to be answered as opposed to topics to be discussed,” Rogelberg says.Does our conference room need a redesign? Outdated office layouts are probably spoiling your hybrid feng shui. Meeting rooms must make it easy for people dialing in to both see and be seen so they feel included. Downsizing meeting spaces can mean fewer unfilled seats and improved acoustics. Traditional roundtable configuration should be traded out for horseshoe, theater-style or similar groupings that expand virtual attendees’ field of vision. “It’s very easy to forget about remote workers if they can’t engage emotionally,” says Gleb Tsipursky, head of future-of-work consulting firm Disaster Avoidance Experts in Columbus, Ohio. Strategically placed lighting can also highlight speakers’ reactions and body language to facilitate understanding and improve collaboration.How do you engage nonparticipators? Multitasking during videoconferences without getting caught has become an Olympic sport. It’s often difficult to tell if your audience is paying attention—though darting eyes and disabled camera feeds can be a giveaway—and difficult to know how to reel them back in. Taylor has a hard-and-fast rule: cameras on, no matter what. “If you’re going to come to the meeting, turn it on so you’re present,” she says. Taylor recommends a technique called “threading” to boost engagement without catching anybody off guard. It goes like this: Address an employee by name, provide context and then ask a question. And confirming with attendees that their presence is truly warranted can eliminate lurkers and ensure that people who don’t need to be there aren’t wasting their time.What to do about at-home distractions? Barking dog, loud construction, screaming baby, it always seems to happen when your mute is off. “The big thing is not to get embarrassed,” says Taylor. Technical issues are part and parcel of virtual meetings. We all deal with them, and while you should do what you can to muffle the household soundtrack shut the windows, bar kids from the workspace, what’s most important is keeping your cool. Turning off the self-view feature and blurring your background can help you focus on the agenda rather than your unkempt hair or chaotic bedroom (or both). It’s also good practice to put your cellphone out of arm’s reach and turn off notifications. “We’ve been through a real crisis,” Taylor says. “But we’re growing, getting better at this.”More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com©2023 Bloomberg L.P."

How To Hold Hybrid Meetings Where Everyone Stays Engaged

Tips for managing office gatherings that won’t leave anyone remote or in person, feeling left out.

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How To Hold Hybrid Meetings Where Everyone Stays Engaged

Tips for managing office gatherings that won’t leave anyone remote or in person, feeling left out.

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