Hybrid Meetings for Committees and Sessions

Reach everyone, anywhere

The biggest advantage is obvious: hybrid formats allow both in-person and remote participation, making it easy to include a broader audience with less organisational effort.

(Virtually) unlimited capacity

While physical meetings are limited by room size, online participants can join in almost unlimited numbers.

Benefits for all participants

In-person attendees benefit from direct interaction, body language, and atmosphere, while online participants enjoy greater flexibility and save time and travel costs.

Increased access for experts and guest speakers

External contributors can easily be dialled in live from anywhere, reaching wider audiences without the constraints of travel or scheduling.

Always-available content

Hybrid events are often recorded, unlike traditional meetings. This allows the shared knowledge, presentations, and discussions to remain accessible long after the session ends.

However, this situation also has another side and hybrid events present new challenges. Even if your virtual participants enjoy saving time and money, they have fewer opportunities to contribute actively and respond quickly. Depending on the technology used, it may be difficult to speak up and be heard.

A major challenge is the limited field of vision for online participants. While those physically present can simply turn their heads to take in the entire room, special arrangements are required for virtual guests to ensure a good view. Since the transmission camera usually focuses only on certain areas of the room, important details of non-verbal communication may be lost. There are now good technical solutions whose cameras automatically turn towards the person speaking.

Finally, the success of a hybrid meeting and the satisfaction of both sides depend significantly on the performance of the technology. An insufficient internet connection, poor speakers or microphones on site, or other technical issues can quickly reduce the participant experience.

For the person moderating a hybrid session, it can be challenging to pay sufficient attention to the virtual participants and integrate them into the meeting. Good planning and preparation are therefore essential. Always run a technical check before the meeting starts so that you can focus fully on moderation.

When your participants meet both offline and online at the same time, communication must be ensured above all else. The moderator must consider in advance how both elements can be connected effectively. What will help participants engage in conversation? How can interaction be encouraged? These questions form the foundation of a successful hybrid meeting.

• What is the purpose of the event and which results should it achieve?
• Has this or a similar event already taken place and are there any experiences from it?
• If so, what conclusions were drawn and what can be improved?
• How many people should be reached offline and online? This does not necessarily depend on the physical capacity on site, but on the question of how much interaction the session requires. The more participants there are, the more difficult the interaction between the two groups becomes.
• Are prepared surveys necessary, or should minutes be created at the same time?

The success of a hybrid event depends on the available technology and the confidence of the moderation

To bring the two groups of participants together in the best possible way, we recommend two moderators. One guides the meeting, focuses on the main topics and takes care of the participants on site. Another looks after the virtual group, its chat and the requests to speak. Together, you will not lose any participants who might otherwise find it difficult to contribute online and who might quickly feel cut off from the discussion.

Main task of the moderation: building the connection between online and offline

Get used to noticing raised hands or someone unmuting their microphone, as this may indicate a request to speak. You can also share observations from the different rooms, such as here in the room I see mostly nodding or online participants are agreeing in the chat.

Plan a short welcome round at the beginning. Each participant briefly states their expectation for the meeting. If the participants are unfamiliar with one another, this can conveniently be combined with a short introduction round.

Please remember. Online formats are not the same as offline formats. A common mistake is to transfer offline meetings directly into an online setting, or to organise them as hybrid meetings. The requirements are not the same.

Longer online meetings are very tiring for many participants because concentrating is more difficult. Therefore, remember to schedule regular breaks during the planning.

Plan small talk as well

If the participants used to exchange thoughts frequently and saw each other often, and this is now missing, small talk breaks can be planned. Your official meeting start will then be moved back by fifteen minutes. Plan this from the outset. During the break, the online connection should remain active. You can also announce that some participants and the moderation will remain in the meeting for fifteen minutes afterwards. These small talk breaks should be off the record, and it must be communicated clearly that they will not be included in the meeting recording. This encourages an open and relaxed atmosphere during the small talk.

Set clear rules for your participants

Good acoustics are particularly important during a hybrid meeting. Ask all online participants to minimise background noise and to mute their microphones, only unmuting them when they wish to speak. This prevents traffic noise, rustling or children or pets in the background from causing acoustic stress for others.

You can find inspiration for creating online rules in our blog post about digital committee sessions.

Formulate a clear agenda for the hybrid meeting or plan a collaborative agenda setting in advance

This means that each person contributes one topic in turn until no one has any more items. Very effective is agreeing agenda points in advance, for example as a survey contribution in your interactive member portal or your own individual social intranet. Important documents relevant to the meeting can also be linked there automatically. With the option of writing live minutes, several people can work on a document at the same time and record the most important points of the meeting directly for everyone.

Despite a variety of challenges, the opportunities to bring your members or employees together through a hybrid event are far more diverse and offer real solutions and advantages for communication, collaboration and cohesion, especially in the current times. Use the flexibility and individuality of hybrid meetings or sessions, and you will soon understand for yourself why this format is so successful.