The switching model between home office and office is an advantage for many employees! You can work anywhere and anytime, which improves work-life balance. Nevertheless, everyone is familiar with the breakdowns during meetings that take place online and on site. So how can hybrid meetings be properly designed?
Key facts
- Hybrid meetings have become the new standard in many companies. Some of the employees are in the office on site, the other is connected online.
- Integrating all participants into the meeting only improves productivity, but also promotes corporate culture & team spirit.
- In order to make hybrid meetings better & more efficient, the technical requirements should be right, structures created and an active feedback culture should be lived.
What are hybrid meetings & why are they so important?
who hybrid work I'm sure you'll know it: All employees should take part in the meeting — whether on site or online. The solution is hybrid meetings. The meeting takes place simultaneously online and on site. In other words, employees in the office sit down in a conference room, for example, while their colleagues connect online.
Why is that important? Hybrid work means involving all employees regardless of location. Not only to pick up everyone involved in the workflow, but also the corporate culture and to keep team spirit alive.
How can hybrid meetings be better designed?
- Provide the right technical equipment
- Establish an “open door mentality”
- Fill hybrid meetings with structure
- Set clear roles
- Let participants have their say
- Think about body language
- Be open to feedback
1. Let hybrid meetings take place with the right technology
The basic requirement for hybrid meetings is technology. Because without them, the exchange between employees on site and from home offices simply does not work. A banal but usually underestimated factor is a stable Internet connection. The connection is not as good everywhere. Therefore, participation must be guaranteed for both participants, especially when it comes to video conferences.
What also applies to all employees is a common communication platform or a chat program. Tools like Microsoft Teams are great platforms for joint communication. Consistency is important here. The entire company should agree on a platform and individual departments should not go it alone.
An important point that is usually underestimated is the visibility of all participants. Even if a hybrid meeting is taking place, every employee on site should be visible to all meeting participants. How is that guaranteed? Now either you install a central camera in the meeting room, which can display everyone, or everyone involved has their laptops open despite meeting on site and takes part in the joint meeting online. In this way, everyone comes together virtually, no one is excluded, but it creates a sense of community.
2. Consciously make hybrid meetings open
In the office, the doors to the meeting room are deliberately open: Everyone can come and go as they please. The time before and after is usually even used for a little chat. In order to give employees working from home this opportunity as well, a small buffer should be deliberately planned for hybrid meetings. A quarter of an hour is enough to give colleagues at home an opportunity for informal exchange.
3. Structures are essential for hybrid meetings
To ensure that all participants do not lose their bearings, it is all the more important to develop structures for hybrid meetings. It doesn't have to be detailed, but a short and concise agenda before the meeting or in the invitation is completely sufficient. During a meeting, a slide or whiteboard in the conference room is an important eye-catcher to focus on the essentials.
4. Moderator, technician, time tracker: Define roles in advance
Speaking of structures: Especially during larger meetings, it is important to keep track of things. A clear distribution of roles before the start of the conference helps with communication and the running of hybrid meetings. For example, managers take on the role of moderators and guide through the agenda. One of the other participants pays attention to the chat and serves as a buddy for employees working from home, helps with technical problems or draws attention to questions. As a result of this distribution within the team, no one is left behind in hybrid meetings.
5. Listen to all employees
Feedback in meetings is important! They promote exchange and make it possible to draw different perspectives on a specific issue. Especially for employees working from home, it can sometimes be difficult to provide feedback. Clear rules such as digital hand signals or the collection of questions by a “chat agent” help others have their say.
6. Don't forget body language
One factor that you quickly forget in hybrid meetings is body language. When participants communicate with each other in meetings, they usually also use body language to their conversation partner. This in turn makes you quickly forget the hybrid participants and subconsciously excludes them. That's why it's all the more important to always talk to the camera and to everyone in the group, even when you're sitting across from each other in a hybrid meeting.
7. Active feedback culture for hybrid meetings
Feedback is always important! If companies have just started hybrid meetings, suggestions for improvement are essential. This can be asked at the end of a meeting by speaking out or by means of an anonymized questionnaire. This provides clues as to where there is potential for improvement.
Set up meetings quickly & easily in a hybrid environment
For hybrid meetings to work, a central organizational body is needed. With our Workstation booking software Seatti gives you everything you need for hybrid work and hybrid meetings.
Take a look at our Site overview Quick and easy to find out where colleagues are currently working. In this way, you know exactly how much space you might need on site in the office and who will most likely join you online. You are also actively providing incentives to allow local employees to participate. You can also use Seatti to quickly and easily meeting rooms book. Through seamless integration into the Microsoft 365 Ecosystem, the calendars of all participants are superimposed and you can see at a glance when and in which room you can best have the hybrid meeting take place. This makes planning child's play!
