Ensuring Effective Hybrid Meetings

"That meeting could have been an email"

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When Stonehenge was being built, it’s likely that some people wanted to discuss purpose, strategy and design more than others who felt they should just get the big stones into the right field first.

They had an advantage over today’s workers though: they didn’t have to choose whether to have their meetings in-person, fully virtual or hybrid.

Of course, had hybrid been available, it would have been wonderfully useful for the folks in Wiltshire to dial in those out collecting stones from the far reaches of the UK, keeping on track of delivery estimates and updating the 6,000-year GANTT chart.

Since then, meetings slowly evolved until very recently when we’ve experienced a sudden monumental shift, where offices have transformed into a mix of physical and virtual environments, due to the rise of hybrid work,

Here’s what the current landscape looks like, with some data on hybrid working:

Hybrid Adoption

Approximately 40% of UK companies have shifted to a hybrid working model, with only 30% of companies remaining fully on-site in 2024, compared to 57% before the pandemic. Of those adopting hybrid practices, 59% require employees to be in the office three days or fewer per week, giving workers significant flexibility​. Office for National Statistics

Employee Preferences and Engagement

Hybrid work has been widely embraced by employees, with about 78% reporting improved work-life balance, and 47% experiencing better well-being. However, there are mixed feelings about the number of in-office days, with 30% of employees expressing a desire for even more flexibility​. Office for National Statistics

Income and Occupation Variations

Hybrid working is more prevalent among higher earners and those in professional roles. For example, 44% of workers earning over £50,000 report hybrid working, compared to only 14% among those earning less than £10,000​. Office for National Statistics

While many people have welcomed this flexibility, it's also quietly reshaped the way we collaborate and communicate—especially when it comes to meetings.

As teams, we need to meet up for many and various reasons, from Project reviews to weekly one-to-ones, from discussing nuanced delicate matters to getting instant decisions on fast-moving topics. I found this article interesting on ‘Four Kinds of Workplace Connection’ we can consider when setting up meetings with our teams. 

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Is your team committing any meeting faux-pas?

Meetings are a universal pain point in hybrid environments, as they often lack a clear structure, engagement, and equal participation, with remote participants being sidelined. Meetings are often then seen as a waste of time which result in unclear follow-up actions.

Indeed, you have probably heard the refrain, or used it yourself, of ‘that meeting could have been an email’. This highlights two faults common in today’s hybrid world: first, when people have gathered others into a meeting, they don’t treat that with the value it deserves and second, that email is grossly underrated as the wonderful information disseminator that it is because so many people are ignorant of how to use it well.

As a thought experiment for the first of these problems, do consider for the next few meetings you set-up, the actual financial cost of the people’s salaries for them to be there helping you with your topic. Even guessing a reasonable hourly rate for each person will help you focus your mind and hopefully encourage a little more preparation than is normally given to most invites.

As to ‘how to use email well’, I believe GTD is a great methodology for email dominance rather than email management. I want you to use email as the digital information sharing tool that it is and control it as that; I see too many people who have their email systems dominate them. Use email for the wonderful asynchronous communication system it is, including using it to share important points to save having any unnecessary meetings.

How can your team improve its hybrid meetings?

The answer lies in parts of the GTD methodology. If you start implementing the following 6 tips, you'll dramatically increase the effectiveness and value of your hybrid meetings. And they're simple enough to get started with at your next meeting.

What’s the Desired Outcome for the meeting?

This applies to all meetings. Decide this while scheduling the meeting, have it in the meeting’s title and invite, remind people at the start of the meeting and have everyone focussed on achieving this outcome – and end the meeting when it is achieved, even if you’ve only used a fraction of the booked time to do that.

Bring Agenda points to discuss.

Everyone should turn up with points they want to discuss, and these can either be collected at the start of the meeting by a chairperson or someone ensures that everyone is asked for their points during the meeting. This helps to ensure that those not physically present are able to be equally involved in the conversation.

Context lists.

These really come into their own when working in a hybrid world. As well as the Agenda lists mentioned above, you may want separate lists for when you meet people in-person as opposed to virtually; when you are in a shared office space as opposed to when you are in your home office and perhaps a list for when you are at a client’s office, or on the train, or working remotely.

Collaboration Software.

Using visual collaboration tools to Capture meeting notes and follow-up points. This could even be a shared GTD system tool if the team track their own Projects and Actions in the same software tool.

Desired Outcomes (GTD Projects) decided upon.

These should be noted in the meeting notes and agreed on who will own each project or be responsible for reporting back on its progress in the future.*

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Next Actions.

Any Next Actions should also be assigned to someone and noted and tracked, as applicable for how your team has agreed to operate.*

*How to set working standards around how high-performance teams track and report Desired Outcomes and Next Actions at a Team and Individual level is covered in detail in the 2024 book “Team: Getting Things Done with Others”.

I’ve long loved and often repeated the saying ‘You can only see eye-to-eye if you meet face-to-face’. Today, that face-to-face may be on a screen in the hybrid world – but I believe the sentiment still stands true – so turn on your cameras!

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