In-Person or Virtual Meetings — What do you prefer?
Since the dawn of the digital age, where emails and social media rule, face to face meetings have taken a backseat or a nosedive. Those of us who were born before 1981, known as ‘digital immigrants’ remember a time when there was no Google or mobiles and one had to pick up the fixed phone or arrange to meet someone in person. It’s probably fair to say that “digital natives” (loosely categorized as those born after 1981), on the other hand, are more accustomed to with texting than talking and virtual meetings rather than physical ones.
“In-person meetings provide a sense of intimacy, connection and empathy that is difficult to replicate via video,” said Paul Axtell, corporate trainer and author of the book “Meetings Matter.” “It’s much easier to ask for attentive listening and presence, which creates the psychological safety that people need to sense in order to engage and participate fully”.
The article describes 5 things that actually happen when people interact. Let’s look at each:
1. Presence brings in Trust
Often, when people meet face-to-face, they feel each other. This can be ritualized as a a handshake or any other of that sort in business environment. According to the research, “Shaking hands causes the centers of the brain associated with rewards to activate. You are literally conveying warmth.”
But the COVID -19 pandemic has dramatically changed how we feel about physical presence of people around us. Since now we have already moved out of the post pandemic phase when handshakes and other business gestures are becoming acceptable to a large extent.
2. Gather Hidden Messages
We must know how the in-person interactions allow us to exchange the hidden messages. Facial expressions play a large part in conveying messages. One such tip would be to notice that people’s pupils dilate when they are happy or excited, and constrict when they are sad. As we look into someone’s eyes during a closer interaction i.e. in-person meeting, one can absorb this emotional information and respond to that in a timely manner.
Before the pandemic accelerated our move to online, Most business professionals argued most strongly for in-person dialog because of the subtle, non-verbal signals we could pick up in the meeting room, and believed we would miss via videoconference. Since then, we’ve learned just how much of that ‘facial feeling’ and those hidden messages we can pick up through a zoom or other apps that we frequently use.
3. We Mirror Emotions
Before writing this article, I had a chance to interact with a few business executives on their experiences for both in-person and virtual meetings. Most of these professionals were of the view that in most cases, they were unable to read the body language or non-verbal expressions of the people on the other side of the screen i.e., people can easily hide their expressions, gestures which can be misleading.
When we see a person take some action, our brain fires up the neurons associated with the same action. When our conversation partner smiles, a part of our brain smiles too.” When we’re excited, the article posits, we can better spread this ‘emotional contagion’ in person.
4. We Pay More Attention
Socially, it is not considered to be polite if someone is noticed checking and/or responding to the messages on his/her cellphone during an in-person meeting. People may get away with this norm when they virtually attend a meeting. Also, there are chances of losing full or a part of the online meeting proceedings due to the technical glitches or a bad internet connection.
On the other hand, if we have already decided to take time out of our busy schedule to attend an in-person meeting, we must make most out of it. This requires some discipline at the organizer’s end as well as at the end of the participants. A face-to-face meeting conveys to the other person that the topic, and the person, are important.
5. Appreciation for the Colleagues
The more we see someone the more we decide we appreciate them. We must remember that once the quantity of remote workforce in a company reaches a tipping point, people who still work on-site start finding the office sad and dispiriting. A good number of people desire the social interaction of having lots of people around.
It is hard to dispute and we won’t that physical proximity is important in relationship-building, whether between work colleagues or with customers. And here come the transformative rituals, festivals, retreats i.e. end user conferences, annual sales meetings, leadership offsites, and first-time-together meetings post-merger — where team and/or relationship building is the primary purpose — the intangible benefits of getting everyone together will likely outweigh the cost and risk.
Wrap Up
I have had an opportunity to remotely work for an international organisation for some time and what I felt was that my limited interaction with all the board members via email, WhatsApp and occasional zoom meetings hardly helped me building network and relationships. On the other hand, through on-site meetings and in-person interactions play a huge role on knowing who is who and how do they work.
Remote working may be efficient for small team sizes, whereas face-to-face meetings are better for large groups of people. But this hides some important differences between employees according to their demographics. Analysing employee characteristics, online meeting efficiency is substantially higher for women and for middle-aged and educated employees, but correspondingly less efficient for men and for older and less-educated workers. Technical support also matters.
Suggested Reading: Meeting Madness — A Corporate Curse?
About the Author
Muhammad Sajwani is the Founder and Managing Director of Evolve HR which aims at transforming, enriching and evolving Human Capital of Pakistan, Evolve HR thrives in challenging assumptions that hinder organisational aspirations, by creating innovative solutions that yield maximum impact, scalability & benefit to a wider base of stakeholders. As a Business Coach and Organisational Consultant, Sajwani knows how to combine business insights with people insights to transform organisations and put them on the path to growth.
