The Hybrid Meeting
It seems to be the norm these days. The hybrid meeting where some people are in an office and some are remote. In fact, over the last decade of working in the Enterprise, it’s hard to recall any regular meetings where all participants were in the same physical location.
The technologies that enable the hybrid meeting have improved dramatically in recent years. Yet I’ve noticed a rather curious irony in how these meetings generally play out. One that flies in the face of what has been “conventional wisdom” when it comes to employee engagement.
Meeting Technologies
If you’ve been in the Enterprise world for any length of time you’ve no doubt used a wide array of meeting tech. Starting with the plain old phone-based conference call and extending to modern video conferencing software.
Over the years I’ve had the pleasure and displeasure of using Cisco Webex, GoToMeeting, Skype, Skype for Business, Microsoft Teams, Lifesize, Slack, and Zoom. I’ve probably forgotten several others too. In general they seem to be improving over time.
Not surprisingly, the most reliable is still the plain old audio-only conference call. Of course there are a lot fewer bits to move around when it comes to audio than video. Video conferencing is always vulnerable to one bad network connection spoiling the experience.
Maybe in the future we’ll have VR headsets with which to conduct our meetings. Then we can all pretend we’re sitting around a table on top of Mt. Everest while discussing the latest TPS Reports.
The Irony
I’ve noticed a curious trend over the past several years when it comes to hybrid meetings. That is, the in-office network connection is often the worst of the lot. In other words, meeting participants may be connecting from all over the globe, yet the in-office internet connection is the choppiest.
We’ve reached a point where our home internet connections are often much faster than at the office. I know this has been true for me personally at every place I’ve worked for at least the past decade.
At one client we routinely have people connecting to the meeting from the UK, India, North Carolina, and remotely in the MSP area as well as the company’s corporate office near St. Paul, MN. When I work remotely, I can see and hear everyone around the world perfectly…except those at the corporate office where team members gather in a conference room around a laptop.
Body Language Tells All
Compare the body language of in-office meeting participants to those working remotely and the difference is dramatic. One group is generally engaged and attentive. The other can’t wait to bolt for the door.
The in-office folks of course are the ones who can’t wait for the thing to be over. Their body language screams “get me out of here!” Arms crossed, feet pointing towards the door, pulling out their cell phones every minute to sneak in a quick 15 second scroll escape.
Then there are the remote participants. These are the ones who are actively engaged in the conversation and generally trying to make the meeting a productive endeavor.
This makes sense. Remote workers are conscious of being thought of as “out of sight out of mind.” And so when the opportunity comes via meetings to be seen and heard, remote workers naturally want to make the most of the opportunity.
Whereas in-office workers, developers in particular, tend to view meetings more as intrusions. At least the type of meeting common in the corporate IT world, and I can hardly blame them having attended a fair number of them over the years.
Summary
The hybrid meeting, where some participants are in-office and some are remote, is prevalent in today’s corporate world. In all likelihood it is the most common type of meeting.
Meeting technology has advanced over the years. Though the biggest improvement to the experience has mostly come from better internet speed and reliability.
This advancement has led to many people having better internet connections at home than they do at their company’s office. As home internet connections have improved faster than their corporate counterparts.
Ironically this has led to remote workers having a much better meeting experience than participants who are in-office.
Body language often reflects this reality. In-office meeting participants seemingly can’t wait for the meeting to end, while remote workers tend to be more engaged.