virtually easy

We're a little over 6 years(!) since the first documented american case of covid. There is no way to convey how many changes to our world trickled out of that one event. A significant one, for many of us, is the way covid changed how we work. The nonprofit where I worked had a single zoom license only a few months before the pandemic hit. Soon, all our meetings were taking place online. I stopped going into the office altogether. It began to feel needless, the hours people spent commuting, when we could do great work at our own kitchen tables. This was work that at one time could only take place in an office. Now it’s possible to do it from anywhere with an internet connection.

But it didn't take long before businesses began their return to office policies. After months of doing it all in a nice shirt and sweatpants, the orders came to drive or transit back in. Not everyone could return to work, though. Some people bought or rented homes far outside cities they didn't imagine ever commuting to. The working world has long excluded people with disabilities or mobility issues. Some people weren't lucky enough to live near transit good enough to get them to their office jobs. If we all started meeting in person again, we'd be leaving some of our new colleagues behind.

I work from home because I want to. In fact, I left a job in part because they insisted I return to the office. At the same time, I like working in an office. I like the energy of people working in space together. We each build personal connections, even capital, when we meet with our coworkers in person. But there are reasons why people don’t go to the office. Knowing all this, I can hold two truths.

1. There is something valuable about in-person work that makes it worth doing.
2. Not everyone can work in person, and we shouldn't punish them for that fact.

I'll assume the push to return workers to offices is more than bailing out people who over-invested in real estate. Here are my ideas to make remote meetings as fulfilling as working in person.

create a level working field

In meetings, it's often one poor sap who has to keep an eye on the online folks. This means that everyone who connects to the video chat has to look at Phil's nostrils while he makes a point. Instead...

• Ask everyone who attends in person to log in to the meeting with their own computers. In-person attendees should join with video on but audio muted. Leave a computer unmuted in the center of the room or place microphones at both ends. This will limit audio feedback and ensure everyone is well-heard.
• Monitoring the chat is everyone's responsibility. If someone online raises their hand, anyone in the room should feel responsible to call attention to it.
• When collecting input from the room, leave space for people online. Ask folks for their thoughts at the beginning and ending of every feedback period.
• Assign 1-2 people per meeting to be the avatar for the person/people online. These folks will pair up with one online user or have them join a small-group meeting. Rotate this role every 20-30 minutes like you would a language interpreter. This ensures nobody feels like we're keeping them from fully participating all day.

unstructured time

I argue that the time spent between meetings is at least as valuable as the time spent in meetings. This is how we build connections with each other that don't revolve around business.

• Open the virtual room 5-10 minutes before the start of the meeting. Leave recording or transcript features off until the meeting officially starts.
• Getting right to business at the start of a meeting rarely happens in person. Build time for friendly interactions into your online meetings, too.

encourage online/offline participation

People online often feel neglected or even ignored during hybrid meetings. This can cause online participants to disengage or contribute less than people in the room.

• Invest in a video/projection system so that everyone in the room can see the people online.
• Reimagine your in-person movement activities. One example: instead of easel paper, project an empty presentation slide onto a wall. In-person participants can add sticky notes to the wall. Online folks can add colored rectangles to the same wall.

acknowledge lag

Limitations of technology can also create a divide between in-person and online folks. We need to acknowledge and account for it.

• Give everyone time to compose their thoughts before speaking. Schedule a moment of silent reflection or journaling after you ask each question. Paste your questions into the chat while you ask them.
• If we use a slide deck, share that with online participants. This allows them to see people in the room without having the whole screen taken up by what we share.

I facilitated a retreat several months ago that we designed to be only in-person. We had one person dialing in from out of town. A heavy rainstorm hit the morning of our session. The one virtual attendee we had planned turned into two, then four, then eight. We soon had as many people online as we did in person. We missed out on the contributions that our online folks could have shared. They felt cut out from the interactive pieces of our agenda. There was little I could do that day that I hadn't already tried. But I left the retreat confident that it could have gone better.

Virtual meetings are no longer optional. They're not a nice-to-have for people who can't meet in person. We have to accept that we may never meet some of our coworkers without a screen between us. They are just as vital to our future success; we exclude them at our own risk.