Meetings are the most basic form of communication in the corporate world. It might be simple, yet it is the most essential one. And if you are a professional one, you must have attended tons of meetings. They are so common that often they are part of the schedules. And are scheduled in advance.
Last year, just like every event, meetings also went virtual. And this made the virtual meeting platform more popular than ever before. And many video conferencing platforms that came last year, able to quickly solidify their position in the market.
The situation around us is changing again. And the return of the people into the physical world is imminent. Therefore, one can expect physical events and meetings will start happening again soon. But this time, they will be in the new form, that is, Hybrid meetings. So let’s have a look at them.
Hybrid Events and Meetings
Hybrid meetings belong to a broad range of Hybrid events. These meetings are physical in nature. But along with live members, these meetings also host virtual members. Thus making these meetings a combination of physical and virtual meetings.
Hybrid meetings provide you with more options to attend the meeting. Also, you can have a choice for face-to-face communication. This allows the hybrid meeting/events to offer the best elements of both worlds. However, there are more reasons for the surging demand for hybrid meetings. Let’s see some of these reasons more closely.
Advantages of Hosting Hybrid Meetings
- Greater flexibility
By choosing the hybrid format for your meeting, you can provide more options to the members. And they can decide how to attend the meeting. According to the situation around them, one can choose how to join a Meeting. That is in person or virtually. Thus providing the attendees more flexibility in attending the meeting.
- Reduced cost of travelling
The Hybrid format of the conference will help you save money on travel expenses. It’s especially useful for companies with remote staff or teams. Apart from the cost, it also helps to reduce the amount of time spent travelling. As a result, scheduling a meeting is simple.
- Connecting remote teams
Many organisations contain remote teams. Or sometimes, while working on an international project, one needs to connect with people from different parts of the world. So in situations like these, one can host a Hybrid meeting to link both local and remote teams. It will help in establishing interrupting communication. And to continue working smoothly.
- Accommodate more people
Some organisations have hundreds and thousands of employees. And this makes it difficult to house all the employees in a single meeting. It can be a problem, especially if one decides to host a Town Hall meeting. So in such situations, one would require to host all the employees in multiple batches. This is time-consuming and inconvenient. You can, however, bypass all of this by organising a Hybrid meeting. All you have to do now is figure out how many employees can physically participate. The remainder of them can participate virtually. As a result, the organisation saves time.
- Availability of recording of the meeting
Another significant advantage of digital events is that you can record the event. And this is also valid for a Hybrid meeting. If you are hosting a crucial meeting and want to keep a record of everything discussed in that meeting. Then having a recording of that meeting will make your life easier. Also, sometimes people due to some reasons are not able to attend the meeting. So they need minutes of the meeting. So, in that case, you can provide them with the recording of that meeting.
- Budget-friendly
When planning a large-scale conference, you may confront several difficulties. And the most prominent challenge is the Budget of the meeting. This might force you to cut some corners to host everyone. But it is not possible to do it every time.
However, with the Hybrid meeting, you can avoid this situation. You can host a large scale meeting on a smaller budget. For this, host a limited number of people physically. And invite others to attend meetings virtually. Also, it allows you to host meetings without compromising on the quality of the event.
- Higher engagement
One thing on which almost everyone is on the same page is the lack of engagement in virtual meetings. And this became a dominant issue among the team leaders since the pandemic. In fact, people have attended so many virtual meetings that now they are tired of them. And the reason behind this is the dull nature of the meeting.
With a Hybrid meeting, team leaders can overcome this problem. They can host engaging meetings by using ice-breaking activities and games. Also, team leaders can use audience engagement features offered by Hybrid event platforms to make their meetings more exciting.
- No requirement for a bigger space
Not every organisation has a large office. Most of the organisations rent spaces in the buildings. While others share office spaces with other organisations to reduce the cost. Therefore, they cannot accommodate a large number of members in the meetings.
By opting Hybrid format for their meetings, corporations can host many people without worrying about space. For this, they host only a few members in person and shift the rest of the members to virtual space. Thus solving the problem of space.
- Option for face-to-face communication
A Hybrid meeting allows you to choose how to attend the meeting. And you have the option to join the meeting in person. It means you can communicate with people face-to-face. This is something that is missing from the virtual meetings.
Many people prefer face-to-face communication. Because they are familiar and habitual of interacting with other people in person. That is why during the pandemic, people faced difficulties in building new connections in virtual meetings. Another reason for this is the lack of a handshake can make people feel something is missing. Or they haven’t greeted the person well.
However, you can overcome these issues to a large extent by switching to Hybrid meetings.
These are some of the significant reasons behind the growing demand for Hybrid meetings.
