How to run hybrid meetings well is a skill we will all have to master in the coming years. When half the people are physically together in a room, and half are joining the meeting on their own via remote link, it’s an entirely different experience.

An image of a hybrid meeting I'm facilitating in Summer 2022

Throughout 2021, I was asked to develop and run a pilot, testing out what makes hybrid meetings (also known as “blended meetings”) work well. I want to share some of the knowledge gained from that pilot here in this post.

How has the move to hybrid meetings changed things?

At first, it might sound simple, just an extension of what some people used to do in rooms with conferencing facilities. However, it’s a fact that we have all moved forward very quickly when it comes to virtual meetings. The hope is that in a few months time, we will all be adept - but it will take a lot of work to get there.

For me, the move to embrace virtual has been fascinating. Many organisations have been quickly adopting team check-ins as well as increasing the frequency of other team meetings. Whereas, research shows that in the last few decades (due to a number of factors) the team meeting has been increasingly absent from organisational life.

This absence of team meetings has ignored the power of peers - problem-solving in a group of diverse people (see my other article).

Then there has been the advent of many different formats for hybrid meetings. Setups like live webinars have made it so much easier for small organisations to attend major national networks and get to briefings with the Government or funders that they would have struggled with before. This, in itself, is one of the many expressions of greater equality for small organisations and marginalised communities.

How to make Hybrid Meetings work

Practical low cost set up from this summers action research meetings in Edinburgh

For small meetings of 4-8 people, it might not be difficult at all - just have 2 or 3 people sharing a laptop in a room. It won’t matter too much if we can’t see their faces or they can’t read the small screen that closely.

However, I think the opportunity to keep improving the medium and larger hybrid meetings we have is really important.

Understanding the purpose of the meeting is key. For meetings aiming to build relationships between organisations or professions, offering a hybrid format is essential. This also goes for meetings that are about equalising power by involving diversity of voices, consultation, and user involvement in policy.

This is the case for development days, strategic planning and many types of organisational development work. We may want many people to be physically in rooms together, while making it equally accessible for those who are geographically distant. This is what I am already doing in the Gorbals and in community centres in Edinburgh, with equipment I can fit on my bike.

We want equal participation of those who are working from home and the many diverse voices that would find it easier to join remotely. One board member at a strategic planning process I was facilitating was attending to his dying parent.

This is a future we need to embrace.

The Future of Hybrid Meetings

The 4 main areas of reasoning for why to convert a meeting into a hybrid meeting.

Meetings are at the heart of the 'Social-Technical System' in how we design organisations and run our cultures. The social aspect is what makes our synergies and diversity solve problems, connect and bring the best in ourselves. The technical is equally important, with its alignment to task and methods.

As a longstanding, well-networked organisational development consultant and trainer, I regularly work with:

events organisers
international facilitators
production professionals

I’ve worked across the wide spectrum of meeting types and environments. And so, I decided to team up with a range of associates in pursuing this agenda of helping save the planet by making meetings more efficient! Learn more about our backgrounds on our About Us page.

In effect, with the future of the nature of workplaces at stake, this is about culture change.

We believe this is the beginning of a paradigm shift in the ‘how’ of workplaces of the future. Throughout 2021, across the globe, we saw the growing trend labelled by the BBC ‘The Great Resignation’. Here we have seen 25% of all staff in all sectors moving jobs at any time. Retention and terms and conditions for staff is a major anxiety for HR departments in most industries.

In future, we will find that when a CEO is asking ‘who is going to be in on Tuesday?’, it is always going to be a double question. One, who is going to be working in my organisation on Tuesday (the great resignation trend). And two, who is going to be in the office on Tuesday (as opposed to joining meetings remotely).

How we work to design hybrid meetings

Don’t get me wrong, humans are a social species, we need to meet up in physical groups, and groupwork is very important to teams.

Here is One Meeting with 14 people in the three images. (guess where the 14th is)

But right now, getting people to come to where you want them to meet up can be challenging. You might need to compete with which venue has the best coffee or lunch. With the rise of hybrid meetings, people may vote with their feet for where they want to work from that day.

From the work I'm doing, we have now developed a range of training courses, consultancy services and practical guidance with tips for those setting up and chairing hybrid meetings. These include tips on low-cost equipment, and how to set up mics, cameras and speakers.
I have written and published extensive Frequently Asked Questions, that you can read FREE on my website, as well as my top ten tips for running Hybrid Meetings.

We are offering several services to help you and your organisation.