With roughly
45% of companies planning to lead the workforce using a hybrid model and
90% of organizations
striving to adopt some virtual work after COVID restrictions diminish,
it's evident that hybrid and virtual meetings are here to stay. However,
with more Zoom meetings planned for the future, organizations need to
focus on overcoming some of the most common challenges of hybrid and
virtual meetings.
The number of hybrid meetings are frequently increasing on employee
calendars, due to some people returning to the office while others
maintain a work-from-home policy either some of the time, or
permanently.
Hybrid meetings include three types of people. First, the meeting facilitator, who could be in-room or virtual. Second, in-room participants, who are in a meeting space together. These are joined by the third type, virtual participants
calling into the meeting using phone or a video conferencing platform
such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or others. There is a new skill required
for each of the three types of people when it comes to maximizing the
effectiveness of hybrid meetings.
Despite the convenience of hybrid meetings that can quickly and
efficiently connect dozens of people — whether they're in the office, at
home, or even in their favorite local coffee shop —these meetings come
with their fair share of obstacles. Identifying the challenges and
resolving them will lead to tremendous potential for future hybrid
meetings.
Some organizations struggle to set specific ground rules for
employees and participants around traditional in-room meetings. New
problems have emerged in virtual meetings with people showing up late
(or not at all), obviously multitasking on other tasks, leaving early,
stubbornly refusing to put their camera on, or turning their camera off
if things get tough.
An easy starting point to begin to address these issues is to tackle
problems one at a time. For example, a straightforward way to avoid
people talking over one another or not paying attention would be to set
ground rules at the beginning of the meeting, before moving forward with
anything else.
The meeting basics remain unchanged from our world before hybrid and
virtual meetings. In traditional meetings, it is important to invite the
right people, turn up on time, state the point of the meeting, state
the agenda, take notes, recap, and follow up the meeting with the
minutes, agreements, and next steps.
For virtual, simply adding ground rules around focus, participation,
and cameras being on are all straightforward virtual boosts.
For hybrid, where some people are in-room and some are virtual, the
first step in establishing ground rules might include having the group
set their own ground rules around inclusion and participation equity for
both the virtual and in-room participants.
Business leaders can proceed once everyone understands those rules,
providing valuable information and insights to their team members.
Employee participation during meetings plays an integral role in helping
the business boost productivity rates while getting everyone on the
same page. Unfortunately, a lack of involvement in hybrid meetings has
become a problem for many organizations.
This has led to virtual participants somehow feeling like coach
passengers on a flight, while their in-room colleagues are being treated
to the first-class experience. Virtual participants in a hybrid meeting
are often shut off from participation, document sharing, side
conversations, and viewing presentations. All participants, regardless
of if they are virtual or in-room, should be treated like first-class
attendees in the meeting.
The first step for business leaders and meeting facilitators is
preparing the hybrid meeting with a “virtual first” attitude to ensure
that virtual participants are not left out and that everything discussed
and shared is available to everyone.
One key is to ask questions and get all participants involved in
sharing their opinions and asking questions, whether they decide to type
in the chatbox or participate via video or audio chat.
Employees may experience disconnect due to technical issues and a
lack of understanding about how hybrid meetings work, which proper
training can easily address. Still other employees may experience the
disconnect that comes from unclear communication and a lack of
engagement between peers. This is a problem that dynamic leaders seek to
address well before meetings begin.
An easy way to resolve this issue is for leaders to discover their
employees' learning and communication preferences. This builds bridges
between leaders and their team members, resulting in deeper engagement
and much happier, more cohesive, and more productive meetings. An easy
way for leaders to discover their employees' learning and communication
preferences is to discover their
Inner Genius Archetypes.
Recognizing the different Inner Genius Archetypes of various
employees is a leader's answer to preventing disconnect while resolving
other problems that can occur, such as unclear communication and a lack
of engagement between peers. Discovering each participant’s Inner Genius
Archetype will unlock communication and strive to overcome the
disconnection many meeting attendees often experience.
Business leaders need to prioritize the needs of team members by
learning more about how they communicate with one another. If leaders
can communicate with employees based on their Inner Genius Archetypes by
using Inner Genius as a tool to measure the Genius Quotient (GQ) of
each person, they can avoid miscommunications and waste less time in
meetings. Each team member learns, processes, and shares information
differently based on their communication and learning preferences. When
business leaders take the initiative to assess each individual, they can
have more productive hybrid meetings while getting more team members to
show up, focus, and participate.
If team members know how to effectively communicate with one another
based on their learning preferences, it eliminates employee isolation,
improves collaborative efforts, and boosts morale within the workplace.
In addition, there is a greater sense of power among employees when
they've unlocked their
Inner Genius Archetype and understand the specific profile of those working alongside them each day.
Working in a 100% virtual or hybrid work environment is here to stay.
Business leaders quickly flexed to working on Zoom, Microsoft Teams,
and other platforms. Yet some fundamental concerns around engagement,
participation, motivation, and inclusion remain ongoing issues. Meeting
facilitators have a huge opportunity to change the way people gather to
discuss, plan, strategize, work on projects, or simply update each other
on what’s happening in their geographically dispersed world. Being
geographically dispersed doesn’t need to change a thing when it comes to
team productivity…in fact, it can be better.
Building better teams and improving collaborative efforts during
hybrid meetings can positively impact a company, leading to more
success. When business leaders want to thrive while adopting a hybrid
model that involves plenty of virtual meetings, identifying each
individual's Inner Genius Archetype makes a difference.
