When Vanessa Moss, astronomer at Australia's national science agency, recalls some of the hybrid work meetings she had to join, she talks about some of the challenges she faced. Vanessa recalls having a difficult time following along due to ‘choppy audio feeds or people in the office sitting too far from microphones'.1 She also remembers that in some hybrid meetings, the remote meeting attendees, including herself, were often forgotten by the in-person attendees, who dominated the conversation. Vanessa (and the other remote meeting attendees) often heard laughter and chatter from the in-person meeting participants, whom she could not see very well either. Like many, she felt isolated and disempowered. ‘Your voice isn't heard so you translate it into your feelings or thoughts don't matter', said Vanessa.
Vanessa Moss is not the only victim of badly run hybrid meetings: the majority of employees who have joined hybrid meetings have experienced similar issues. Collaboration software Asana gathered its executives during the Covid-19 pandemic for a discussion about the office reopening. Half of the meeting participants were at the office in San Francisco, and the other half joined by video conference. The remote attendees, including the CEO, started to lose their patience as people in the office talked over one another and made side comments. Even the company's Head of People Anne Binder commented that they (the remote meeting attendees) were joking that if they didn't like what somebody said on the screen, they could just mute them. Binder commented: ‘We all had such a terrible experience that we made a decision at the end of that meeting that all executive meetings going forward will be in-person.' She continued, ‘Or they will be fully remote. We're not doing the in-between.'2
Holding hybrid meetings can present many challenges, many of which are relatively new for people. First, hybrid meetings make it very challenging to maintain high levels of engagement for all participants. Remote meeting participants may struggle more to remain engaged throughout; they may have more distractions (package delivery, doorbell ringing, relatives or roommates' interruptions, pets, etc.) and as a result they are more likely to be multitasking. If remote meeting participants are not invited to contribute, they are more likely to be disengaged in the meeting.
Hybrid meetings can also be a barrier to collaboration and teamwork; when meeting participants are in different physical locations, creating a united team that works as a unit can be more challenging than usual. From internet lag to technical issues related to audio or video to poor connectivity, hybrid meetings can be a challenge and contribute to miscommunication or bottlenecks. The security element of hybrid meetings is also a challenge that can prevent teams from being as collaborative and as productive as before. The risks of sensitive data leaking, ransomware, cybersecurity issues, and malware are much higher in hybrid meetings than in traditional face-to-face meetings. This is especially true for hybrid meetings that discuss sensitive information such as board meetings, business review meetings, quarterly business reviews, performance reviews, and HR meetings. Sensitive data, including financial information, data about employees, salaries, profit and loss, and financial performance, are more likely to be leaked, stolen, or used for ransomware attacks in hybrid work meetings. As a result, some hybrid meeting participants might be reluctant to share information and to contribute for fear of putting confidential information at risk; this can lead to productivity issues, communication issues and, of course, cybersecurity issues. Hybrid meetings can also contribute to feelings of exclusion for those who are full-time remote employees. Remote meeting participants can feel left out, isolated, and even excluded from the main conversation, because they are often ‘out of sight, out of mind' and simply forgotten by the meeting attendees who are in the office. As a result, they may not be asked for their input during meetings, or they may be given just a few minutes at the end of the meeting to share their thoughts, when their co-workers in the office had plenty of time to contribute.
Hybrid meetings are what brings hybrid teams together. In a hybrid work environment, they are the vehicle for team collaboration, communication, team building, and creativity. Hybrid meetings involve a combination of in-person and remote meeting participants. Remote participants join the conversation via a video conferencing platform such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams, whereas in-person participants are together in a meeting room in the office. Hybrid meetings are different from remote or virtual meetings, where all participants join remotely (from home or from another location). Hybrid meetings are a unique mix of office components and virtual components. The goal is to facilitate smooth discussion and collaboration and make those things as easy as in a face-to-face meeting. The trend for hybrid meetings is on the rise, especially since the Covid-19 pandemic started in March 2020. According to an article titled ‘Addressing the Biggest Challenges of Hosting Hybrid Events' published by Harvard Business Review, ‘In 2021, 64% of businesses say they're increasing their virtual events, and 58% say they're planning for a mix of virtual and in-person events.'3 In an article published by Forbes and titled ‘Four Reasons Your Company Should Pivot To Hybrid Events', leading speakers bureau All American Entertainment surveyed its clients about their 2021 event plans, and it revealed that ‘about two-thirds of those surveyed said they are actively moving ahead with in-person, virtual, and hybrid event planning for 2021'.4 In a survey ran by Cisco titled ‘The Rise of the Hybrid Workplace: A Global Survey of Executives, Employee Experience Experts, and Knowledge Workers' published in October 2020, it was found that 98% of those surveyed expect all meetings to include remote participants.
With the majority of knowledge workers choosing to continue working remotely as much as possible, hybrid meetings are here to stay. There are some very good reasons and benefits for it as well! First, hybrid meetings can significantly boost efficiency. They can allow employees to reduce travel time, and they can join more meetings if they don't have to travel between each one. It also allows more employees to join meetings because a more diverse group of people can now join, even if they are not physically located in the same office. hybrid meetings are also more inclusive than traditional office meetings because they allow employees to join remotely, who would not otherwise be able to work. For example, parents caring for young children can do the school run in the morning and in the afternoon can work remotely, having the flexibility to work and care for their children at the same time. Disabled individuals no longer have to face the commute to work as they can now join meetings remotely. Individuals living in remote neighbourhoods due to lower incomes can now join meetings remotely without having to face an expensive commute every day. Hybrid meetings simply give more employees access to work and are therefore more equitable and more inclusive than traditional in-person meetings; they are also more convenient because they can be recorded, rewatched, and shared with more people afterwards. Hybrid meetings are also much more cost-effective than off-site meetings at expensive venues; if your organization embraces hybrid meetings and hybrid work, it will probably downsize its office space and save important office costs for your organization. However, as mentioned previously, there is a real risk if hybrid meetings are not run inclusively; if remote participants are not proactively invited to the conversation, remain quiet the entire meeting, or only have a few minutes to share their input compared to their in-office colleagues, you may unconsciously create a two-tiered workforce: one where in-office employees are more included and recognized, and remote employees are more excluded and underappreciated. So you must follow a few strategies to ensure that your hybrid meetings are inclusive, equitable, and optimized for your hybrid team:
Hybrid meetings always present a risk for remote meeting participants that they will not be heard, valued, or included as much as their office colleagues. A study of 1000 employees recently conducted by Business Electricity Prices found that ‘53% of remote employees are worried about being left out of in-person team meetings and other activities that take place in the office'.5 Another study titled ‘2019 State of the Digital Workspace' by software firm Igloo found that 70% of remote workers feel left out of the workplace.6 Remote employees are indeed feeling more excluded and left out from hybrid meetings than their office counterparts, and for good reason: they are much more likely to be forgotten, excluded, and not paid attention to during hybrid meetings. This is why appointing a meeting facilitator for all your hybrid meetings is key to creating an inclusive and equitable meeting experience for all meeting participants, not just in-office workers.
As Vanessa Moss explained when she joined hybrid meetings remotely, working at Australia's national science agency, she often heard laughter and chatter from the in-person meeting participants whilst not being able to participate at all. These side conversations can really impact how remote participants feel in hybrid meetings, making them feel more excluded and isolated. When hosting hybrid meetings, pay attention to details such as side conversations and side jokes from office participants that exclude remote meeting participants. Don't be afraid to speak up and say, ‘I'm hearing a lot of side conversations which are excluding our remote participants, can we make sure we speak to the entire group?' Likewise, if you notice that some remote participants unmute themselves, or try to make a point and get into the conversation but they struggle, call it out. You may say: ‘I noticed that Sarah unmuted herself, and Jane was trying to say something; Sarah, Jane, what would you like to say?'
If you are new to managing hybrid meetings and you have not had a chance to appoint a meeting facilitator just yet, a simple way to ensure that you host an inclusive and equitable meeting is to use the round-robin method. This method, also called round-robin brainstorming, essentially allows everyone to contribute in an equal manner. It allows all meeting participants to share ideas without being influenced by one person. Ask each team member to think about a contribution or an idea, comment, or feedback they want to share related to the topic of the meeting; ask each meeting participant to share their idea in turn and when they are done, ask the next person to do the same. Once each meeting participant has had a chance to share their idea, continue with this circular contribution swap as long as necessary until the time is up. This simple method allows all remote meeting participants to contribute and speak up as much as in-office meeting participants. It fosters equity and inclusion for remote meeting participants and reminds office participants that they also have colleagues joining remotely.
Pairing employees is a practice that has existed for a while and has been used across many industries. Many companies pair a new employee, or new starter, with someone who has been working at the company for a while to help the new starter navigate his new workplace more effectively. However, the Covid-19 pandemic has pushed more companies to widen pairing to remote workers. More companies are now pairing remote workers with office workers in an attempt to foster more inclusion in the workplace. These organizations have found that remote team pairing improves collaboration, increases engagement, and boosts morale of both employees. This system is also referred to as the ‘buddy system' because it essentially assigns a remote employee a ‘buddy' or a friendly person to be their guide in the organization. During hybrid meetings, the office-based buddy stays connected to their remote buddy, invites them to get into the conversation, and notices when the remote buddy is struggling to get in or wants to speak.
The rise of hybrid meetings and events is a trend that continues to grow, in every country, in every industry, and in every organization, no matter how big or small. According to a 2020 Marketing Charts survey, half (50.7%) of executives think that in the future, all live events will possess a virtual dimension.7 According to a 2020 AMEX study, event organizers reported that 23.6% of their events in 2021 will include a virtual component and will be smaller local events with fewer than 25 attendees who will require no air travel or hotel rooms. Whether your company is planning hybrid events, or whether you simply want to create more inclusive and equitable hybrid meetings, you need to learn how to host hybrid meetings in an inclusive and equitable way. By appointing hybrid meeting facilitators who are trained on keeping equitable practices in a hybrid work environment, by paying attention to small details and dynamics in the group, by using the round-robin method to guarantee equitable speaking time, and by pairing remote workers with office workers, you will host hybrid meetings that are equitable, inclusive, and fair towards your remote workers.
When American social news website Reddit decided to adopt remote work and to have a distributed workforce, the company invested in the best video conferencing systems and state-of-the-art remote working tools. The San Francisco–based company spent time learning remote-work best practices from other distributed companies. Although the company found that remote employees did good work and were productive, it decided to end the remote work policy just two years after starting it. CEO Yishan Wong explained, ‘As it turns out, our teams (within each office) and remote workers did good work, but the separation has kept us from effectively being able to coordinate as well as we needed to on a full-company level. Big efforts that require quick action, deep understanding, and efficient coordination between people at multiple offices just don't go as well as we (and our users) needed.'8 In other words, Reddit's CEO claimed that communication suffered because of remote work – speed and problem-solving were negatively affected due to remote working.
Reddit isn’t the only company that had a poor experience with hybrid work. American web services provider Yahoo also had an experiment with remote work, which didn’t go to plan. Less than a year after joining Yahoo as the CEO, Marissa Mayer suddenly banned remote work in the company. Yahoo's CEO memo announced that remote workers should either relocate close to the office or quit. The memo said that ‘to become the absolute best place to work, communication and collaboration will be important, so we need to be working side-by-side. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices.' Yahoo's CEO also demanded that even employees working one or two days in the office submit to the new regime of office-based work. The memo explained that ‘speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home'. However, was the decision to end remote work at Yahoo justified? Some Yahoo employees revealed that there was ‘little effort to stay in touch regularly,' suggesting that the company failed to handle internal communication well; another former Yahoo employee shared that working from home actually made them a lot more productive, quoting: ‘I didn't have to put up with numbskull self-important programmers constantly yakking to each other LOUDLY from the next set of cubicles about non-work-related stuff, and I wasn't being distracted every 20 minutes by some bored soul coming over to my desk to go for coffee or foosball.'9
Hybrid work can present some real challenges, especially for teams and organizations that are not well prepared for it. As the example of Yahoo demonstrates, hybrid work can sometimes struggle with collaboration challenges; Yahoo's CEO cited that ‘speed and quality were often sacrificed when we work from home'. Marissa Mayer also said, ‘We need to be working side-by-side because communication and collaboration are important. That is why it is critical that we are all present in our offices.' To a certain extent, she is right: when hybrid teams are not managed properly, and not given the right attention and guidelines, their collaboration and communication can suffer. Of course, poor internet connection, working different hours, and living in different countries and continents can also hinder communication and collaboration in hybrid work. Hybrid working can sometimes mean that remote employees have less access to information. If managers have not prepared well by implementing a few best practices to share information, remote workers and hybrid employees may struggle more than their office counterparts to access information easily and on time. Remote and hybrid employees may also be more at risk of not getting promoted or offered career and development opportunities at the same rate as office workers; it might be unintentional and the result of unconscious bias towards remote and hybrid employees, but research has demonstrated that ‘out-of-sight' employees are more likely to miss out on career development opportunities as opposed to their office peers. Hybrid work might sometimes lead hybrid and remote employees to feel like they are more excluded and isolated from the team in comparison to their office colleagues; many studies have demonstrated this. A survey of employees conducted by the Royal Society for Public Health found that two-thirds (67%) of workers who shifted from the office to home during the pandemic felt less connected to their colleagues.10 The same survey also highlighted disparities between different demographics: women were more likely than men to report feeling isolated (58% and 39% respectively). Another study conducted by OnePoll surveyed 2000 work-from-home Americans to explore the social impact of being away from the workplace after more than a year of remote work. It revealed that 7 in 10 employees who work from home are feeling more isolated compared to being in the office. With the absence of in-person events, 63% felt less engaged with their team, as the average employee felt disconnected.11
If the common pitfalls of hybrid work environments are not addressed, hybrid teams can suffer greatly from a lack of collaboration, decreased productivity, lower employee morale and engagement, greater employee turnover, bad reputation in the market, and can even fail completely. This is why it is fundamental that hybrid team managers and leaders take some steps to prevent the most frequent issues that can arise in hybrid work. Below are some of the most common pitfalls and issues that can arise in hybrid work and how to overcome them:
In hybrid work, communication tends to be more asynchronous, meaning that it doesn't happen in real-time, but rather, there is a delay between the time the person delivers the message and the time the recipient receives it. A typical example of this is when hybrid teams use instant messaging tools such as Slack-many messengers wait to get a reply to their message. Delayed replies to messages can hinder communication and collaboration, and can also create some silos between in-office workers and remote workers.
By implementing an effective hybrid communication strategy, managers can mitigate the risks of poor communication in hybrid work. First, managers should reassess their current communication framework. By asking a few simple questions – What tools do employees use to communicate each day? What are the guidelines for meetings? What training is provided to employees on communication tools? – managers can get a picture of the areas that require improvement. Leaders should define policies and workflows for the ideal communication in hybrid work, and they should communicate about it often via all channels. Leaders should seek frequent feedback from their teams on areas for improvement related to communication, both qualitative and quantitative. Team leaders should host frequent ‘lunch and learn' sessions and invite the entire team to discuss communication and collaboration successes and areas for improvement. Team leaders should also leverage team meetings and one-to-ones to ensure that all employees are included in the relevant projects.
In January 2022, a Gartner research paper titled ‘Checklist for Ensuring Hybrid Workers Can Always Find the Information They Need' revealed that ‘Among the biggest barriers to productivity for remote and hybrid workers is the inability to find the information they need for their day-to-day work.12 This problem is exacerbated by the lack of ‘walking-around knowledge' – that is, knowledge gained by asking colleagues questions during casual encounters in, for example, the cafeteria or corridor.' For knowledge workers, having instant and easy access to important information is key to doing their job effectively and efficiently. However, many companies have struggled to make access to information and knowledge easy and simple in hybrid work. Companies such as Yahoo and Reddit have blamed a lack of access to information and knowledge for failing at remote work.
Team leaders can follow a few simple steps to make information accessible to everyone in hybrid work. Firstly, managers should ensure that they build an effective onboarding process. Quality and proven onboarding processes set teams up for success when it comes to information sharing. Managers should also reinforce the guidelines of information sharing by following the guidelines themselves. When managers actually follow the rules themselves, their team members are much more likely to follow in their footsteps. Organizations should also reorganize and centralize knowledge in hybrid work, so that remote and hybrid workers can easily find the data they need to do their jobs efficiently. Successful hybrid teams must document processes such as recording information in a central place and make it available to everyone. Creating virtual workplaces is another great way to share information; many tools such as Microsoft Teams offer virtual workplaces for teams to spend time together and share information as if they were in the same office. Managers should promote regular training, pairing team members from different departments and mentoring schemes: training and pairing employees promotes knowledge sharing. Finally, managers should also promote an information-sharing culture by sharing what they know often, encouraging their team members to share knowledge, and discouraging information hoarding.
Hybrid work is still a relatively new way of working and for many workers, it is unfamiliar and different to what they have experienced before. As a result, the majority of employees, including leaders and team leaders, hold some degree of unconscious bias towards hybrid work and towards hybrid and remote workers. Many believe unconsciously that hybrid work hinders employee experience, that it makes hybrid workers less productive, and even less innovative. Many managers I have worked with believe that remote workers and hybrid workers are simply not as committed to their job as their office colleagues. For some managers, this belief is very conscious and openly shared; for others, this belief is unconscious and implicit – this is when proximity bias and distance bias come into play.
Since the Covid-19 pandemic and the introduction of remote and hybrid work, many research papers have revealed how employees feel more disengaged and less connected than in office environments. According to a poll of over 2000 employers and employees from all around the world that was published in the Harvard Business Review, as many as two-thirds of employees who work remotely are not engaged in their work. The poll also discovered that employees who work outside of the office are less likely to remain with their companies for the long haul.13 Feelings of connection and belonging are key to retaining employees and they should be intentionally nurtured in a hybrid work environment, where opportunities for spontaneous and organic communication are less frequent than in a traditional office environment.
Leaders can also identify ‘culture champions' in their own teams; recognising ‘super connectors' and allowing them to drive employee engagement programmes can significantly improve employee engagement and camaraderie in the hybrid workplace. Finally, fostering celebration is a great way to boost camaraderie in hybrid work; acknowledging small and big wins and recognizing success is a powerful way to bring teams together around their success. Creating a culture that celebrates career achievements, anniversaries, and even personal life events is a great way to bring the team together in a positive way and to create rapport and connection opportunities.
Hybrid work can still present some challenges for managers and organizations at large, especially for managers who are relatively new to leading hybrid teams and who might hold some unconscious bias towards in-person work.
Some organizations have tried to shift to hybrid and remote work, and failed, like in the cases of Reddit and Yahoo, mostly because they didn’t prepare and plan for a successful hybrid work environment. Luckily, there are practical ways for leaders and managers to mitigate the risks related to hybrid work. As American author and leadership expert Jocko Willink said, ‘Leading people is the most challenging and, therefore, the most gratifying undertaking of all human endeavors.'
The main goal of this book is to provide leaders with a guide to successfully build, retain, and develop a thriving team in a hybrid work environment. Throughout this book, I have shared a variety of strategies to do that, by using the four-pillar framework that I have developed and refined throughout my years of consulting with organizations. Although I have done my very best to make this four-pillar framework as simple and straightforward as possible, I realize that it covers a lot of concepts and that it may be time-consuming to go back to it and search for information quickly. This is why I want to share with you a practical checklist that you can use ‘on the go' and easily go back to when you need a refresher. I have used the same four-pillar framework, and I have added a handy list of items to check and ensure that you are on the right track. The best way to use this checklist is to simply write down each item listed on a blank sheet of paper and to honestly write down where you stand next to each item. You will be able to easily identify areas where you are doing well already as well as areas for improvement. Here goes:
This checklist should serve as a practical guide for what to do to build, nurture, and retain a team in a hybrid work environment. Feel free to revisit that checklist as often as you wish to, and to score yourself for each item. You might notice that over time, your scores improve in some areas, which is a sign that you are becoming better at building inclusion in your hybrid team. Feel free to share that checklist with your colleagues, peers, and the rest of your organization. The more your colleagues will embrace that checklist, the more successful your team will become.