How to Hold Hybrid Meetings Where Everyone Stays Engaged

As working from home has run into post-pandemic pressure to return to the office, a Frankenstein has been born: the hybrid meeting, stitched together from people on Zoom or Teams trying to find common ground with colleagues in a conference room at HQ. The creature remains misunderstood by meeting leaders and attendees alike. “Individuals who attend remotely feel somewhat marginalized,” says Steven Rogelberg, professor of organizational science at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and author of the forthcoming Glad We Met: The Art and Science of 1:1 Meetings.

He recalls the widespread apprehension about fully remote meetings before the pandemic made them a fixture of modern work. Now many people have similar misgivings about hybrid meetings. It’s all about “setting it up where everybody is participating on equal footing,” says Anita Woolley, a Carnegie Mellon University professor of organizational behavior. But striking the right balance between in-person and remote engagement is hard, complicated by return-to-office mandates that have some workers dialing in more than others. We asked experts how managers and employees can deal with Zoom-induced frustrations and make hybrid work … work.