Mastering Hybrid Meetings

It’s not always easy to get the engagement that is needed or the results you want in hybrid meetings, o People join late, adjust their equipment while others are already speaking, are pre-occupied with other things, repeat points or stay silent. In hybrid settings, an additional pattern becomes visible: people in the room speak to each other, while those online struggle to enter the conversation. The meeting continues, but the effectiveness is gone.

If you want more engagement and better outcomes, you need to make behaviour intentional. The quality starts with how people prepare, how they interact and how they take responsibility for the process. What people do before and during the meeting is directly visible in the quality of the outcomes.

Below are five practical steps to enhance engagement.

1. Prepare

It may seem like something everyone already knows, yet in practice it is often skipped. And when it is skipped, it shows immediately in the interaction. Preparation is a combination of visible behaviour and commitment and both determine how effective your contribution will be.

Start with your goal. Be clear about what is expected from you and what you want to achieve, so you can contribute in a way that moves the meeting forward. When the goal is clear, contributions become more precise. People ask sharper questions and listen with intention.

That same level of preparation needs to be visible in your setup. Check your sound, centre your camera and place it at eye level because a low or unstable angle creates distance and makes interaction less direct. Ensure your face is clearly lit from the front so others can read your expressions without effort. Choose a background that is calm and non-distracting so the attention can stay on the conversation.

In hybrid meetings, preparation also means thinking about positioning in the room. Can everyone be seen and heard equally? If you are in the room, be aware that side conversations or turning away from the camera quickly exclude online participants. Small adjustments in positioning often make a significant difference in inclusion.

2. Guide the meeting

Ensure there is a clear and alert chairperson. Someone who actively guides the process, names behaviour and keeps the focus on outcomes. In hybrid meetings, this role becomes even more important, because attention is easily divided between the room and screen.

If there is a chair, use that role actively to help guide the process: refer to the agenda, name where you are and suggest the next step. If no one takes the lead, step in yourself because a lack of direction quickly leads to repetition or silence.

Make interaction discussable. Interrupt respectfully if needed by naming what is happening: “Can I pause us for a moment?” Then actively include both groups: “I would like to hear from someone online first” or “Before we continue in the room, does anyone online want to respond?” This makes participation more balanced and visible.

3. Timing and breaks

Online and hybrid meetings move slower than people expect. The delay might be in technology but usually it is in the interaction. People wait a fraction longer before speaking, nonverbal signals such as eye contact are less clear and overlap in speaking is avoided. In hybrid meetings, this delay increases because people switch attention between physical and digital participants. To keep the pace, actively invite people in. As a chair you can let them know: “If two people start at once, we will simply choose one and continue.”

Do not plan meetings back-to-back. This creates pressure and unfinished conversations. You need time in between to write things down and go through what came out of the meeting. Without that pause, you carry unfinished actions, tasks and thoughts into the next meeting. You can see it in behaviour: people join the next meeting distracted, catching up while it has already started. This reduces their ability to contribute with focus.

4. Use body language

Because our brain continually scans for movement, online and hybrid meetings are exhausting. So much is going on and unconsciously we try to pick up on anything. So too much distraction is not helpful.

I am a strong advocate of using cameras in online meetings because of the importance of nonverbal communication. In hybrid meetings this becomes even more relevant, because the risk is that people in the room rely on each other’s presence and forget the online participants.

If you want people to stay engaged, the preference is to have cameras on, because seeing each other supports the kind of real interaction we need as people. Nonverbal behaviour needs to be used more deliberately. Your line of eye contact and posture matters. When you look into the camera while speaking, others experience it as direct communication.

If you are in the room, make your behaviour visible to those online. Avoid speaking while looking only at colleagues next to you. Turn your body towards the camera when contributing.

You can also support clarity through simple gestures. When you want to emphasise structure, use your gestures to support your words. For example, show “first, second, third” with your fingers, so people can both see and hear the sequence. This makes your message easier to follow, especially in online and hybrid meetings.

5. Think outside of the box

Sometimes the unexpected helps to engage people. For example, you could send participants a small, unexpected object in advance: a teabag with a label “for when the conversation gets steep,” a stress ball for when the stress is too intense.

You can also replace the standard round of updates, such as asking people to prepare to summarise their work in a short poem, which immediately changes attention.

In hybrid meetings, ensure that any intervention works for both groups. If you introduce something physical in the room, think about an equivalent for those online. What matters is not the gimmick itself, but that people experience a break in routine and are actively invited. 

Conclusion

Meetings improve when behaviour becomes visible and is actively guided. When you prepare your setup, you reduce distraction. When you prepare your goal, you bring direction. When you guide interaction, you create clarity. When you manage timing and breaks, you protect focus.

Results in meetings are not a coincidence. They are the outcome of deliberately chosen behaviour, especially in environments where people are not all in the same place.