- Hybrid meetings can make remote workers feel left out, Jabra study finds
- Inappropriate and outdated configurations cause meeting delays and technical failures
- Better meeting room kit and clear meeting purposes could improve participation
Around half of remote participants say they are forgotten, talked over or left out during hybrid meetings, a new study from Jabra has revealed, indicating that hybrid in-person and remote meetings may not be as effective as we thought.
The problem is particularly evident when there are multiple participants in a physical room and others join online. But more than that, women (16%) and young workers (26%) are more likely to feel like they are being excluded.
But it may not be the hybrid concept that is to blame: Jabra argues that outdated technology is making it difficult for all participants to have equal visibility, and that bad technology is only amplifying existing cultural problems around visibility rather than creating them.
Hybrid meetings are the least effective type
This is evidenced by the fact that hybrid meetings generally have worse outcomes than fully remote meetings, with workers more likely to miss content (59% vs. 41%), feel left out (55% vs. 38%), or need follow-up meetings to clarify details (42% vs. 28%).
Years after workers were sent home at the height of the pandemic, companies continue to fail in their meeting technology. Three in four hybrid meetings experience at least one technical failure, and participants often report having difficulty hearing (73%) or seeing (68%).
Jabra even claims that these failures add an average of 11 minutes to each hybrid meeting, and the losses can increase even more for larger companies.
This is because workers spend an average of eight hours per week in meetings (more than in Denmark, India and the UK).
Since more than half (58%) of that time is generally considered unnecessary, 66% leave without clear action items and 59% demand follow-ups to clarify missed points.
Infrastructure and purpose of meetings are the keys to success
As for the solution, many companies have turned to AI to help with things like meeting summaries and live transcriptions, but widespread usage remains low. Lack of trust and privacy/compliance issues also prevent companies from investing in AI.
“AI can improve a well-run meeting, but it can’t fix a broken one,” said Holger Reisinger, senior vice president of Jabra Enterprise’s enterprise video business unit.
To solve the problem, the report urges companies to invest in meeting room technologies such as microphones, cameras and connectivity to bring remote participants closer to in-person attendees.
At the moment, 37% use a single laptop as a room microphone and speaker, 31% revert to audio-only after abandoning video, and 23% have even dialed in to listen to audio. A third (34%) also noted that participants join from their own individual devices, rather than using a central meeting room system designed to capture all participants.
Jabra is also one of a growing number of researchers finding that workers face increased Zoom fatigue (42% of workers reach their energy limit within two hours of back-to-back meetings, 83% within four hours), emphasizing the need to rethink meetings entirely and only make calls when necessary.
That way, workers are more likely to be alert and actively collaborate with all their colleagues, hybrid or not.
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