Using empathy to tame a hybrid beast
6 principles how to make your hybrid meetings more enjoyable
What happens when you combine something incompatible? For example, a rooster and a snake? A horrifying hybrid! In the named case — a cockatrice. In this article, we’ll explore how to combine in-person and remote setups in such a way that no one runs from a hybrid meeting as if it was a medieval beast.
The Virus Which Shall Not Be Named is here for more than a year and many of us have already mastered the subtle art of remote collaboration. The waves roll in and out — some of us meet in the office, while others join from home. In an attempt to connect both groups, we hold hybrid meetings.
Often they turn out to be painful — the mix of environments makes it even more difficult to hear, see and understand each other. Remote participants might feel excluded, on-site teammates might think their colleagues behind the screen are having a nap. Dragging through technical glitches, we just want this horrifying hybrid beast to disappear from our lives.
Having been accustomed to the flaws of video calls, here we stand in front of another challenge — how might we successfully collaborate during hybrid meetings?
Empathy is the answer
One of the key principles of modern business is user-centricity. We jump into shoes of our target, trying to understand their needs and pains.
Why don’t we use the same approach for our teams? The best way to establish your own hybrid meeting etiquette is to practice some empathy.
Ask your remote peers to think how would they feel joining from the office and those who stay in the office — how would they feel joining from remote.
You can use the following questions:
- Which challenges would your teammates have?
- What would make them upset?
- What would make them feel excluded?
- Which kind of setup would they have (technology, space, people around)?
- How would they behave? Both in positively, for example in an office they might be happy to see each other; and in negatively, for instance, they might feel screen fatigue and would want to take some rest on a sofa.
Collect the answers and think together about how might you overcome these obstacles and make the hybrid meetings more enjoyable. Document your findings and publish your new etiquette where it will be accessible for everyone.
Managing inequality
This empathy exercise will inevitably lead you to the discussion of managing inequality. Since there is a mix of environments, participants of hybrid meetings are in unequal conditions by default.
To ensure the equality of participants, everyone will need to sacrifice a bit of their comfort.
Especially that concerns teammates that join from office. In general, being mindful about inequality (any inequality) is painful — it demands discipline and constant awareness about your privileges.
As a consequence, your teammates might feel anxious about following the etiquette suggestions and even question the enjoyability to join hybrid meetings from office.
Give your new etiquette a try and then have a retrospective session to discuss how everyone feels, then iterate.
Below you will see 6 hybrid etiquette principles that worked for our team. However, every team is special and you might have different needs, challenges, and technical setup. That’s why the above-mentioned empathy exercise is so useful.
Principle 1: Remote first
West’s Unified Communication Services Meeting Fatigue Study found that 57% of remote workers feel like they’re forgotten about when joining from remote.
Invite remote participants to answer a question or express opinion first, not last.
Principle 2: Be inclusive in small things, too
This inequality we have talked about before doesn’t have to be work-specific.
It also concerns some simple social things — for example, bringing tasty snacks to your office room for a break during your hybrid meeting. This can be extremely isolating and frustrating for your remote team members.
Same with the cross-table conversations. They make your remote teammates wonder:
“Did I miss something important?”
“Was I the only one who didn’t hear?”
“Was this a private conversation?”
“Were they laughing at me?”
It’s difficult to cut out the kind of conversations that aren’t meant for everyone. So, if they happened, just take a moment to explain: “Anna just asked me if I can share a link with her”.
Principle 3: Cameras always on
We’re not going to talk a lot about technical setup here. First, it really differs a lot from team to team. Secondly, there’s a lot of information around about it, for example here.
The most important thing is to ask everyone to turn their cameras on.
Why remote participants should always have their cameras on?
- On-site participants might wonder if you’re still there
- On-site participants might think you’re multitasking
- On-site participants will have 0 clues how you feel
- As a consequence, on-site participants might forget to involve you
- On-site participants might think you have technical issues
- On-site participants spend their time setting up their “office look” and “bad hair day” is not an excuse. They are prepared to show themselves. Why shouldn’t you?
Why on-site participants should always have their cameras on?
Even if you have a camera in your office, which is great, that’s how remote participants are going to see you:
Principle 4: Raise your hand
Whether you’re joining from remote or from office, raise your hand if you want to speak up.
If someone is sharing a screen, it’s better for remote participants to use the “Raise hand” function in your video call software instead of actually lifting their hands. It’s because usually, you see only a limited number of faces in the presentation mode.
It might be also useful to have 2 moderators — one on-site and one on remote — to ensure everyone is heard.
Principle 5: Mind your noise
On remote — remember that if you’re wearing headphones, you might not hear your background noise that everyone else hears.
On-site — be mindful that your room mic might be very sensitive. Remote participants can hear everything that is happening in the room, including the side conversations, paper shuffling, chairs moving, etc.
Principle 6: Manage your time wisely
The same things take a different amount of time in the office and on the remote. At home, you spend 1 minute to reach your bathroom, while in an office you might also have to wait in a line or even run to another floor. If you miscalculated and entered a room late, a mic catches a lot of noise and for remote participants, it’s difficult to hear something.
For remote participants, it’s also important not to abuse the flexibility they have on default. Don’t multitask and don’t take extra breaks unless absolutely necessary (urgent bio break, feeling unwell, emergency, etc.). Imagine your on-site teammate suddenly taking a nap or munching something in front of everyone?
It’s difficult to be a knight that tames fantastic beasts — you need a great deal of skill and discipline. But perhaps if you have a supportive team of courageous knights under the flag of empathy, you are more likely to succeed?
By the way, what about you? How do you deal with hybrid meetings? Share your stories and tips!
