How do you have effective Blended Meetings

Many of us are now moving to a hybrid working world, where many meetings are what are being called 'Blended Meetings'. This is where two or more people are in a room on a virtual meeting with one or more joining remotely - often whilst working from home.

 Virtual meetings have brought their own challenges, including technology, behaviours and establishing meeting norms. Blended meetings bring further challenges, and there is an increased chance of people feeling a strong sense of exclusion, the meeting being a struggle, objectives not fully met and sense of something not quite right.

 So, how do we make blended meetings as effective as face-to-face sessions?

 - Always have everyone say something at the start of the meeting - this is essential. The research says if they speak at the beginning, they are far more likely to interact during the meeting.

 - Ensure everyone is aware who is remote and who is in the room - it is important that everyone feels included and people know where everyone is.

 - Say your name and raise your hand each time you start to speak - sometimes it is difficult to know who is speaking in a blended meeting, so explicit signalling helps to keep everyone focused on whoever is speaking.

 - If you need to leave the meeting and return inform everybody in the chat pane when you go and when you return - this also maintains inclusion and avoids people being distracted by someone’s unexplained absence.

 - If you are sharing a laptop with someone, make sure you are both ‘in shot’ of the video, so you can both be seen. Also, remember the name on the video will only be that of the person who signed in.

 In all these tips, the role of the chair as the meeting ‘Announcer’ is critical in keeping things on track, to ensure everyone explicitly knows what’s happening. Then everyone at the meeting will feel included and able to participate fully, and your hybrid meetings will be far more effective. 

 We offer a range of short, information packed courses on virtual skills To find out more follow the link Virtual Skills Training — Emailogic, email enquiries@emailogic.com or call +44 (0)203 154 6611.