Qualitative field study of hybrid meetings at two global software companies, one in Denmark and one in the United Kingdom. It combined meeting observation, video analysis and short interviews.
Two companiesA Danish team of 27 members, seven of them in India, and several departments of a United Kingdom company.
Meetings observedDaily scrum meetings, a retrospective, three video hybrid meetings and one audio meeting, lasting 5 to 90 minutes.
Short interviewsTwo employees in Denmark and 21 in the United Kingdom, in interviews averaging nine minutes.
CodingInterview transcripts, observation notes and video notes were coded in stages, from open to focused coding.
BWhat the study found
Technical imbalancesequipment and rooms at each end of a call
•Interviewees described weaker rooms and connections at the far end of calls.Interviewees said this made it harder for people at the far end to hear and to contribute.
•Even within one company, meeting rooms held different technology, which cost setup time.People arrived without the right adapters. One observed meeting started about seventeen minutes late because of trouble with a Surface Hub touchscreen display.
•Interviewees said meetings ran better when everyone joined from their own device.An observed audio meeting of 104 people, each at their own desk, ran smoothly with fluid turn-taking.
Social imbalanceswho spoke and who was left out
•In these meetings, culture, habit and accent shaped who spoke.Participation also depended on the task, how well people knew each other, microphone habits, digital skills and stress.
•Remote participants were often sidelined when the room brainstormed on a physical whiteboard.In a meeting that brainstormed on a shared online tool instead, remote participants contributed equally and were more engaged.
•Every observed hybrid meeting was affected by imbalances between room and remote participants.The only seemingly successful meeting was the large audio call, where no such imbalance existed.
CKey takeaway
Hybrid meetings can work well when room and remote participants share an equal technical and social footing. Asymmetry between the two sides, in equipment, rooms, language and talk, can leave remote people isolated.
Made for this site with AI assistance from the verified research brief. It is not the paper's own figure.
Abstract
Hybrid meetings, in which co-located and remote participants connect via video or/audio, have become ubiquitous in the globalized modern workplace. Despite, or perhaps because of this ubiquity, conducting hybrid meetings is not straightforward. In this paper, we investigate the opportunities and challenges of hybrid meetings. We conducted a multi-site study of hybrid meetings in two global software companies in Europe, using participant observation, semi-structured interviews and video-analysis. Our findings show that there is a significant diversity in formats and requirements for hybrid meetings in different working environments. Further, hybrid meeting participants perceive and handle a range of both expected and emergent problems. While some problems can be attributed to difficulties or failures of technical infrastructure, others arise out of asymmetries of interaction and social and cultural context across the co-located and remote settings. We argue that managing these asymmetries is key to a successful hybrid meeting.
Research brief
By Banu Saatci, Roman Rädle, Sean Rintel, Kenton O'Hara, and Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose.
Takeaway: Hybrid meetings succeed or fail on asymmetries of interaction (technical and social imbalances between room and remote participants). A large call with everyone on their own device, for example, ran smoothly.
Why this matters
What was known
Video-mediated communication has been studied for decades, but mostly in laboratory or controlled settings rather than in everyday workplace meetings. (§1, pp. 1–2)
What this paper adds
A holistic, multi-site, multi-method field study of hybrid meetings as they happen at work, identifying when they succeed and fail. (§1, pp. 1–2)
Who it matters to
Organisations that run hybrid meetings, the knowledge workers who take part in them, and designers of video-conferencing software. a simple recommendation would be to train modern knowledge workers in conducting meetings(§5, p. 14)
Research questions
What are the main problems of people in hybrid meetings taking place in the business setting?
How are hybrid meetings diversified across different working environments, departments or companies?
How do certain instances emerge as problems in hybrid meetings and how are these problems constructed by different users?
Method and data
Design
Multi-site qualitative field study combining participant observation, semi-structured interviews and video analysis.
Setting
Two global software companies, in Denmark (Company A, a Global Business Services team of 27 members, 20 based in Denmark and seven in India) and the United Kingdom (Company B, several departments).
Participants / data
At Company A, four daily scrum meetings and one retrospective meeting. At Company B, three video-based hybrid meetings and one audio-based virtual meeting (Table 1). Interviews with two employees at Company A and 21 employees at Company B.
Duration
Observed meetings lasted 5 to 90 minutes (Table 1). Interviews averaged nine minutes.
Analysis
Interview transcripts, observation and video notes coded in NVivo through open coding, line-by-line coding and focused coding.
Findings
Unequal equipment at each end. In hybrid meetings at two global software companies, interviewees described weaker rooms and connections at the far end of a call than in their own well-equipped offices. This made it harder for people there to hear and to contribute. #
“on the other side of the network, the equipment is usually not that good and then it becomes a problem”
Every room was different. Even within one company, meeting rooms held different technology, so people arrived without the right adapters and lost time setting up. One meeting started about seventeen minutes late because of trouble with a Surface Hub. #
“when you walk into a meeting room, you are not quite sure what technology you are gonna have in there”
Everyone on their own device seemed to work better. Meetings where everyone joined from their own device were easier to set up and run, and put people on a more equal footing. An audio-only meeting of 104 people, each at their own desk, ran smoothly, with fluid turn-taking. #
“I think we need to start the default to behavior of everyone joining the meeting from a device.”
Culture, habit and accent shaped who spoke. Beyond technology, participation depended on the meeting's task, cultural habits of turn-taking, how well people knew each other, microphone habits, digital skills, stress, and accents, which took time to get used to. One Danish team member felt that colleagues in Denmark spoke freely while colleagues in India waited to be asked. #
“In the beginning I used to pretend.”
Remote people were left out. Remote participants were often sidelined while those in the room dominated, especially when the room brainstormed on a physical whiteboard they could not see. In a meeting that brainstormed on a shared online tool instead, remote participants contributed equally and were more engaged. #
“you need to shout to [...] this crowd in order to get attention to yourself”
No hybrid meeting escaped imbalance. Every hybrid meeting we observed was affected by technical and social imbalances between room and remote participants. The only seemingly successful meeting was the large audio-only call, where no such imbalance existed. #
(§5, p. 14)
Questions this paper answers
Why do hybrid meetings so often go wrong?
Because they split people into two unequal groups. Those in the room share the space, the whiteboard and side talk. Those remote depend on weaker equipment and connections, and must work harder to be heard. The imbalances are social and cultural as well as technical. (See §4.1, p. 6; §4.2, p. 9; §4.2, p. 13; §5, p. 14.)
Are fully virtual meetings better than hybrid ones?
Sometimes. Meetings where everyone joined from their own device were easier to set up and more equal. Among meetings observed at two software companies, the one seemingly successful meeting was a 104-person audio call without in-room versus remote asymmetry. (See §4.1, p. 7; §5, p. 14.)
Will better meeting technology fix hybrid meetings?
Not on its own. Reliable equipment is a must, but at two software companies users still had to cope with breakdowns themselves, and the problems were socio-technical. Even well-equipped rooms were not always used well, for example an interactive screen set up for a meeting that only needed listening. (See §4.1, p. 6; §4.2, p. 9.)
Does knowing your remote colleagues make a difference?
Yes. People who often met their remote colleagues in person recognised their voices and did not need to see them. Two researchers who never met their collaborators in person needed to see who was at the other end. Turning off video on a bad connection was not an option. (See §4.2, p. 9.)
Contributions and implications
Train knowledge workers in conducting hybrid meetings, since they are often run haphazardly. we observed that they are conducted haphazardly, and a simple recommendation would be to train modern knowledge workers in conducting meetings(§5, p. 14)
Video-conferencing software could include tools that flag technical issues or visualise participation to help equalise speaking time, though such tools could also be used for surveillance. there is also a danger that such tools could be used for surveillance(§5, pp. 14–15)
Besides equalising technical infrastructure across sites, consider the meeting task, the numbers of co-located and remote participants, their experience and socio-cultural differences before setting up a meeting.
Users still have to cope with breakdowns themselves, so both prior planning and flexibility are needed. it is still the user, who has to be knowledgeable and experienced enough to cope with the technical issues and breakdowns(§5, p. 13)
Limitations
The study does not offer specific design implications. we do not point out specific implications for design(§5, pp. 14–15)
Interviews were short because of employees' time constraints. Due to the time constraint of the employees, the average length of the interviews is nine minutes.(§3.1, pp. 4–5)
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Concepts
Hybrid meeting
Our working definition: Hybrid meetings are video- and audio-based meetings that include both colocated and remote participants.(§1, p. 1)
Virtual meeting
The other format we observed, where everyone joins from their own device: Virtual meetings are different from hybrid meetings in the sense that there are no physical rooms in those meetings(§3.1, pp. 4–5)
Asymmetries of interaction
Following Heath and Luff, the changed reciprocity of communication through a technological medium. We extend it to technical, social and cultural differences between sites. hybrid meetings create asymmetries that extend beyond the reciprocity of perspectives explored by Heath and Luff(§5, p. 14)
How to cite
Banu Saatci, Roman Rädle, Sean Rintel, Kenton O'Hara, and Clemens Nylandsted Klokmose. 2019. Hybrid Meetings in the Modern Workplace: Stories of Success and Failure. CollabTech 2019, 45-61. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28011-6_4
This brief was prepared with AI assistance and published by Sean Rintel. It is not the authors' published text. Page numbers refer to this PDF.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{saatci2019hybrid,
author = {Saatci, Banu and Rädle, Roman and Rintel, Sean and O'Hara, Kenton and Klokmose, Clemens Nylandsted},
title = {Hybrid Meetings in the Modern Workplace: Stories of Success and Failure},
editor = {Nakanishi H., Egi H., Chounta IA., Takada H., Ichimura S., Hoppe U.},
booktitle = {CollabTech 2019},
year = {2019},
month = {August},
publisher = {Springer, Cham},
url = {https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28011-6_4},
pages = {45-61},
note = {Cite as: Saatçi B., Rädle R., Rintel S., O’Hara K., Nylandsted Klokmose C. (2019) Hybrid Meetings in the Modern Workplace: Stories of Success and Failure. In: Nakanishi H., Egi H., Chounta IA., Takada H., Ichimura S., Hoppe U. (eds) Collaboration Technologies and Social Computing. CRIWG+CollabTech 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 11677. Springer, Cham https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28011-6_4},
doi = {10.1007/978-3-030-28011-6_4},
}