How to Master Hybrid Meetings

There have been three ages of virtual meetings:

1. Pre-Covid, when some businesses met online some of the time, but most conducted all meetings in-person
2. The height of the pandemic, when social distancing forced pretty much all businesses to learn how to meet online
3. The present day, when the meaning of the word “workplace” can now mean a traditional office, a meeting room, a home, a cafe or a park bench, and businesses and staff are finding their own happy mediums that work best for them. Hybrid offices also need hybrid meeting solutions.

The speed with which business has adapted to blended working all around the world has been testament to the adaptability of companies, despite most of them not quite seeing the benefits until their hands were forced.

In some ways, a completely remote team might find it easier to meet than a hybrid one. When everyone has their own device, everyone knows they control their incoming and outgoing volumes, and can all be seen by anyone with a screen – even though their face might be the size of a postage stamp. With hybrid, you need a slightly different approach.

Hybrid meeting technology 

With hybrid meetings, best practices are met when everyone can see and hear everyone else. For the remote attendees, that’s not a problem. They’ll just log into Zoom, Teams or whatever system is being used, and continue as normal. But for the people gathered in the office, it can be a little trickier to set up. 

Microphones

The sound is the most important aspect of a hybrid meeting and is also the easiest place to slip up. As a general rule, there should be one single microphone in the middle of the meeting table, or in front of a line of attendees arranged in a theatre setup. Sound quality might be better if everyone has their own mic, but the problem comes when the same voice gets picked up by multiple microphones – it can lead to an echoey sound that’s hard to follow.

If there’s good mic discipline, then yes, let each person have their own, but realistically, that means muting and unmuting constantly, and is not conducive to a meeting dynamic unless everyone has a set time for speaking. And then it’s probably just better to pass a single microphone around.

Speakers

The speaker situation is similar to the microphone one – it’s best if there’s a single speaker in the physical meeting room that everyone can hear rather than multiple speakers. A good idea is to use a dedicated conference speaker/microphone that sits in the middle of the table and does both tasks. It can be wired or wireless, and nowadays both work equally well in most circumstances. The main speaker should be connected to the main event host’s computer so they can control the volume to avoid feedback, and mute the microphone when not in use. 

As for remote attendees, headphones are usually preferable to speakers, especially those mounted on laptops, phones or tablets, as they can pick up the incoming sound and broadcast it as an echo if the mic isn’t muted. With headphones, no feedback loop is possible. 

Cameras

All the remote guests will be using their device cameras, so that isn’t a problem, but what about the in-office attendees? It’s not unusual to have one master camera that can see all in-person attendees, feeding off the main host account. Remote attendees should probably make that window the largest on their screens if possible, or the faces will be tiny, and it’s difficult to pick up non-verbal cues. 

That said, sometimes it works perfectly well if all in-person attendees are filming themselves as if they were remote, i.e. with their own cameras. It won’t make much difference to people in the room, but it can give a more personal feel to remote guests. Of course, both a large team screen and individual faces can be sent over the conferencing software. It’s unlikely to cause any confusion, and it’s good for all attendees, virtual or real, to know who is in the meeting room.

Screens

The final element screen. Again, remote attendees don’t need to do anything special, but if there’s a large screen at the front of the room, it’s very useful to have this in use for any kind of hybrid meeting. It gives a focal point, and feels a lot more natural, especially if the camera is mounted next to the screen, where everyone is facing. A large screen is also great for sharing slideshows, movies and so on, so make sure you’re set up to do such presentations – it might mean sharing documents with the meeting host so they can put them on the screen.

Preparation

Now you’ve sorted out the technology for hybrid meetings, you need to make sure it’s all going to run smoothly. If your hybrid workplace strategy doesn’t yet cover meetings, a little preparation can go a long way. Run this checklist before you start:

• Connectivity – is the WiFi strong enough to cope with all the devices that will be in use? If it’s a shared office, WiFi can sometimes slow down when there are multiple people sending and receiving high-definition video at the same time, especially if there are other people not in the meeting who are using it. Don’t forget that desktop and laptop PCs always have an Ethernet port, so if the office is equipped with Ethernet, you can plug in and save wireless bandwidth. Just make sure there are enough cables.
• Equipment – make sure you’re familiar with using the equipment beforehand. A meeting isn’t the time for on-the-job training. Do a test run with a few other colleagues, some of whom are remote and some in the room, to make sure you know how to operate screens, mics, cameras and speakers.
• Etiquette – make sure everyone who’s attending knows the etiquette for your meeting, for example, whether to have microphones muted when not speaking (almost always yes), when to turn up, when questions can be asked etc. It saves time and embarrassment when the meeting is underway.

There are some excellent videos and web pages all about setting up the perfect office for hybrid meetings. Search on YouTube and watch a few different videos, as not every setup will suit your specific needs, and you’ll build up a good picture of what works and what doesn’t.

Walk into a hybrid meeting room

When you book a meeting room with Meetingo, you can specify that you want it for a hybrid meeting and our office managers will make sure you have all the equipment you need. You certainly won’t have to worry about connectivity either – you’ll be guaranteed super fast broadband and WiFi, plus Ethernet connectivity if you need it. 

And we won’t drop you in at the deep end with the equipment, either. We’ll make sure you know exactly how to use any of our technology well in advance, and we’ll just be a phone call away if you need advice or a helping hand.

All this is fantastic, but it comes with some of the most sought-after locations in the world, supremely comfortable offices, break-out spaces, food delivery, transport links and … we’d better stop now – we don’t want to make the remote attendees too jealous.