The Future of Hybrid Meetings

TL;DR

This paper explores the future of hybrid meetings by identifying key success elements and proposing new technological tools to enhance psychological safety and physical comfort, while addressing privacy concerns.

Contribution

It introduces a framework for future research on improving psychological safety and physical comfort in hybrid meetings through innovative technologies.

Findings

Identifies three key elements of successful meetings: execution, psychological safety, and physical comfort.

Proposes new tools to support psychological safety and sensory comfort in hybrid meetings.

Discusses potential privacy risks associated with new meeting technologies.

Abstract

Meetings are typically considered to be the fuel of an organization's productivity -- a place where employees discuss ideas and make collective decisions. However, it is no secret that meetings are also often perceived as wasteful vacuums, depleting employee morale and productivity, likely due to the fact that current technologies fall short in fully supporting physical or virtual meeting experience. In this position paper, we discuss the three key elements that make a meeting successful (i.e., execution, psychological safety, and physical comfort), and present new tools for hybrid meetings that incorporate those elements. As past research has focused on supporting meeting execution (the first element), we set the roadmap for future research on the two other elements: on psychological safety by articulating how new technologies could make meeting useful for all participants, ensure all participants give and receive appropriate levels of attention, and enable all participants to feel and make others feel comfortable; and on physical comfort by dwelling on how new technologies could make the meeting experience comfortable by integrating all human senses. We also discuss the potential danger of these technologies inadvertently becoming surveillance tools.