Let’s be honest: Hybrid meetings can be hard. If not done right, remote participants can feel like they are peering at poorly framed videos of their colleagues talking around a table. And those in-person become anonymous faces in a room, wondering if remote colleagues can even hear or see them.

With more organizations shifting to hybrid work, I often hear from customers about their successes and frustrations as they try to bridge the gap between digital and physical workspaces.

“We’re either all remote or all in person. Hybrid doesn’t work,” one customer recently told me.

I can relate, but I don’t agree. Last month, my team held a hybrid offsite—a combination of virtual and small in-person meetings to discuss business challenges, brainstorm ideas, and get to know each other better.

Here’s my top takeaway: if you keep the people outside the room top of mind, hybrid meetings work. And while it may be tempting to fall back to the habits of the “old normal,” it also would mean missing a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a better, more flexible work environment for everyone.

Back in September, we shared ABC practices to help make your hybrid meetings inclusive and effective. After spending a few days experimenting with my team, the experience reinforced to me the importance of these practices. Here are my takeaways and some easy steps everyone can follow:

Audio
What we learned: In a hybrid setting, you want to join a meeting quickly to make good use of time together. But coming back to the office for the first time in almost two years, it took us several minutes of trial and error to remember how to use the conference room devices while the rest of the team waited to get started. Many of us in the room joined the meeting from our laptops so we could participate in chat and share live reactions. In a Microsoft Teams Room, audio on companion devices is automatically adjusted to avoid feedback, but if you change the settings you’ll create some very distracting audio friction. Whoops!

What you can do: First things first, take a couple minutes before the meeting to make sure everything is working. If the conference room doesn’t have a centralized AV system, use a Microsoft-certified speaker puck to ensure that everyone can be heard. For the sake of online participants, avoid using the built-in laptop microphone for meeting audio.

Bring your laptop
What we learned: Most conference rooms are not hybrid ready. In fact, less than 8% of the nearly 90 million meeting rooms worldwide are video-enabled. During our small group meetings, some of us relied on wall mounted cameras while others also used their laptops, and the difference in experience was telling. In-room video showing people sitting around a conference room table made it hard to distinguish the participants and keep up with the conversation. As one of our teammates put it, “I was mostly deducing from the voices I heard during the pandemic.”

What you can do: Embrace a “laptops up” approach for all in-person attendees. Join meetings with cameras on and microphones and audio off. As laptop cameras are positioned at eye level and centered on individuals, remote attendees can easily view speakers no matter where they are in the room. If your conference room is equipped with large monitors, make sure remote participants can be clearly seen on the front of room screen so they have greater presence in the meeting. “People shared pictures of how I appeared in the room and went out of the way to make remote attendees feel included,” one of our remote teammates said.

Collaborate
What we learned: We know some of the main reasons people want to come to the office is for brainstorming and relationship building, but bouncing ideas between remote and in-person participants with a big group was tricky at times. And while we were understandably excited to meet and chat in person, some remote colleagues found it hard to participate in multiple side conversations.

What you can do: Assign a facilitator to set meeting ground rules and monitor chats, raised hands, and reactions. It’s critical that everyone, including people in the room, use the “raise hand” feature in Teams before talking—otherwise, remote colleagues can be left wondering who is talking and never get a chance to share their perspective. Use inclusive features like live captions, transcription, and chats to help everyone follow along and participate on equal footing.
Experiment!

While I love the practical nature of the hybrid meetings ABCs, I’m taking the liberty to add an “E” as I believe we all need to experiment and learn to make hybrid meetings work!

What we learned: We know that some things are not suited for hybrid formats, and it’s OK. We finished our weeklong experiment with an in-person only, outdoor happy hour (no more guessing each other’s height!). We know that social capital built up around watercoolers and ties with people on the outer rings of our networks have weakened during the pandemic. I wanted our offsite to help forge new connections that will persist even when we’re not physically in the same room together.

What you can do: With limited time together in the office, consider what should actually be held in person—like networking and brainstorming sessions —and what “could’ve been an email.” We brought a little fun into the experience, with my team making cookies with common quotes heard in Teams meetings. Next time, we will also organize a social activity for remote-only team members to help everyone forge new connections and feel included. Finally, make sure to gather feedback about hybrid meetings and be open with your team about the learnings. This will help build confidence in the journey and navigate the “bumps” along the way. For example, our culture team anonymously collected, synthesized feedback about our offsite and shared a summary of what worked and areas for improvement in our subsequent All Hands.
While these are easy steps everyone can take today, if you want to learn about state-of-the-art technologies designed for hybrid meetings, check out this video, where we share some of the most innovative experiences and devices coming to Microsoft Teams.

I’d like to thank my team for being willing to experiment and learn together. I’m looking forward to hosting hybrid team weeks quarterly to continually learn, discover new ways to connect with my team and iterate. Please share your experiences with me. Let’s make #hybridwork work together!