Hybrid meetings “are easy to do poorly and hard to do well.” Harvard Business Review

Because you preside over and/or attend these meetings all the time we’ve blogged about 3 Best Practices for Hybrid Meetings. Here are three more Hybrid Meeting Engagement Tips to maximize your return.

Hybrid Meeting Best Practice #4 – Engage both in-person and remote participants

Ask yourself, “What do your remote participants need to see?” Answers include:

• Any PowerPoint visuals
• Faces of in-room attendees
• Content created during the meeting from flipcharts to whiteboards
• Shared presentations

How to make this happen? Try NOT to have your in-person group connect in on zoom. They will soon realize they could just WFH… Work From Home. Rather… read on!

Dr. Shirley Davis, Global Workforce Expert

Hybrid Meeting Best Practice #5 – Have a strong facilitator 

Dr. Shirley Davis did just that at our recent National Speakers Association – N. TX Meeting. She spoke to the assembled crowd, engaging all in-person attendees. Yet, periodically, she asked the Virtual Concierge to share what was going on in the Chat Room. She asked for the visual of the Zoom Room to be shown on our screen. The virtual group felt included, got their questions answered and their comments heard.

Deborah Gardner, CMP also suggests, “Learn to work all camera angles. More cameras will be involved at meetings to help the virtual audience capture a wider experience.”  (Speaker Magazine July/August 2021)

Hybrid Meeting Best Practice #6 – Design meetings for all attendees

• When you begin your meeting or presentation, you acknowledge all of your group … especially those online.
• When you ask your in-person participants to do an activity, that is when you direct all of your attention to your virtual audience to work/talk specifically to them.
• When you hear feedback from your group, you’ll be inclusive – getting comments from both your in-person and online community.
• When your live audience goes on break, you have another opportunity to connect with your virtual attendees.

As this pandemic continues to morph you will resume some in-person gatherings. Even so, hybrid meetings will become a permanent part of how your business will function.

© 2021 Karen Cortell Reisman, All rights reserve

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