With virtual meetings a daily part of business operations, people have gotten used to logging into a Zoom or Teams meeting on their laptops. However, with more businesses bringing employees back into the office, hybrid meetings are more common as well. A hybrid meeting is one where there are in-person attendees and virtual attendees or presenters.
You can set up hybrid meetings in several ways. If it’s a small meeting space, a TV monitor with an HDMI connection to a laptop can function as a basic set-up, utilizing the laptop’s webcam and microphone. For meetings with more than a half dozen people, however, you should look into upgrading your audio/visual equipment to accommodate a larger space. An external camera, additional microphones, and external speakers for the monitor or projection screen are beneficial to the meeting, allowing everyone to clearly hear and see any virtual attendees and presenters.
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Once you have your set-up complete, here are three tips for improving your hybrid meeting.
1. Build Connections
While hybrid meetings allow virtual and in-person attendees to share the same “space,” it is easy to leave out the remote attendees when people in the room break into smaller chat groups or socialize like usual. Try to keep in mind the remote team members in your meeting and actively engage them. Have any speakers present or comment one at a time so as not to cause overlapping audio, which can be hard to decipher and also clutters automated captioning.
2. Consider Everyone’s Roles
You can try different set-ups to liven meetings and better engage your remote team members. If someone “in-person” always leads the group, can you try designating one of the remote participants to direct the conversation? Or flip-flop the roles if a virtual presenter always leads. This can help engage everyone and make meetings more equitable for all participants.
3. Have A Hybrid Agenda
When running a hybrid meeting, you need to keep in mind the needs of both in-room team members and remote attendees. If you generally work with notes or brainstorm by writing on a flip chart, consider using the digital whiteboard function on Zoom or Teams instead, so everyone can see the content. If a meeting involves intros or icebreaker questions, consider tailoring these to fit both in-person and remote team members, so no one feels excluded because of proximity.
With some basic considerations, you can run a hybrid meeting with ease and make it engaging for everyone attending.
Resources:
https://www.fastcompany.com/90660340/9-tips-and-tools-for-effectively-managing-your-hybrid-meetings
