Hybrid Work Environments - What you need to know
Hi everyone, it's Jennifer Buchholz with Excel & Flourish. I'd like to talk to you a little bit about hybrid work environments and give you a low-down on some of the things that you're going to want to keep in mind as folks are returning to work. We want to make sure that everyone has a seat at the table, everyone has the same information available, and that everybody can participate fully.
Current vs Ideal Environment
Now, think about what that means in your current environment and perhaps how Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365 can help enable some of these things. What are your audio and video limitations when you're doing meetings? Is everyone on a device at a table and the folks that are remote around their own devices? Are you using video? Are we Zoomed out? Understandable. But really think about how you’re engaging the people that you need to in order to get them into the meeting, get business done, and then get them out so you can move on.
Hybrid Participation
How are your files or handouts being shared? If there's paper being passed around the table and folks who are remote are not able to participate in that. That's a huge miss. You don't want to disenfranchise those folks. Think about how you're preparing external attendees for their participation and engagement. Now is the time to do this right or you're going to risk people checking out.
Missed Opportunities
I have an example for you. I have a friend who was invited to be a part of a meeting, and she was the only one who's going to be attending virtually. He didn't give her anything but a link in advance. When you're supposed to be a full participant in a meeting more information is necessary. Especially when you know that everybody else is going to be in the room. So I gave her a quick list of questions to ask including:
My virtual presence:
Will I be on somebody's phone?
Will I be on a laptop screen?
Will it be on a big screen in front of the whole room?
In-person presence:
Will everybody else just be in the room on one camera?
Will they be on camera at all?
Will they be on their own individual screens?
Audio participation:
How is audio going to work?
What do I need to do to be able to participate so people will recognize when I have something to add to the conversation, or is that something that we're naturally facilitating and you'll make sure that you're calling on me regularly?
In the end, here's what happened: She didn't even get in the room because there were tech difficulties. Think about that! You don't want to have that happen to people that you're trying to engage with in remote and hybrid environments.
Meet In Real Time
If the majority of the people are in the room, they're going to keep going and there's going to be other (virtual) people left behind. If you need any help with ideas on having a really inclusive and participatory environment, reach out to me.