Adapting Meetings For The Hybrid Workplace

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Jean Bays: I would even say, if you do not have the right tech in place in this meeting room, yes, it's better when everyone is sitting in front of their screens to make it a meeting, which is valuable for everyone.

David Rice: Welcome to the People Managing People podcast. We're on a mission to build a better world of work and help you create happy, healthy, and productive workplaces. I'm your host, David Rice. 

My guest today is Jean Bays. She is the Chief People Officer at Neat. We're going to be chatting about meetings in the hybrid workplace, the experience of modern meetings, and what employees can and should expect from them.

Jean, welcome!

Jean Bays: Thank you, David, for having me. 

David Rice: So first off, tell us a little bit about you, your role at Neat and how you got to where you are today. 

Jean Bays: Exactly. So you will hear a lot of funny accents. So I'm German actually, and I'm living in the UK for about 17 years now. Always have been in HR related roles for 25 years, very passionate about HR, or we call it now the people organization.

And I'm with Neat, which is a Norwegian headquarter based technology company for about two years now. I'm heading up the people department with my team. In total, we are looking across 24 countries where we are looking after our Neaters, how we like to call them. So it's a very international role across many time zones.

It's across many virtual meetings and spaces. So yeah that's me and I'm happy to be here. 

David Rice: Very cool. Yeah. I'm happy to have you on because more companies are facing sort of a global challenge, right? When they think about how they execute their meetings. 

So I want to start the conversation off as when we think about meetings, how they've changed the last few years and the impact that changing work models has had on them. In your opinion, what are the biggest shifts in how we view and experience a meeting in say 2020 versus today?

Jean Bays: I think as we all know, the biggest shift is in 2020. I think most of us to be included in a meeting, to be included in a meeting room, to taking part of certain projects, it required to fly in or to travel in, making an impact, having a voice, being part of a project team.

And I think we all learned fairly quickly, we have to change that because otherwise we could not run companies and not doing projects. So we've been forced into a massive change, which was, I have to admit, it felt very uncomfortable. I think many people can relate to that not being in a meeting room and having all of this doing on zoom and being in front of a screen for the whole day.

So, but we've been forced into that. And out of that, of course, they developed or there were some techniques and behaviors developed in certain meetings that everyone can feel included more or less. I think we still learn about how to make an impact when you are not in the room. So it was tremendous change for the good, sometimes not for the good, because that's without any doubt. 

And I'm not saying that because I'm working for the company I'm working for, but without any doubt, a face to face meeting is still the best way of communicating, but with a development in technology, with a development in certain behaviors in meetings I think we made wonderful progress that we don't have to travel in. And I mean, I always have this one example in my previous role. I would fly from London to San Francisco for 24 hours just to attend a meeting and just think about carbon footprint, think about the time, all of that. 

So yeah, massive change. Very exciting. Actually very exciting what we are facing. 

David Rice: Yeah, I think even like, you know, the pandemic started in 2020. And at first it was like, I think everybody was just using Zoom. And then it would took like maybe a year before you start seeing all these other tools pop up. And I think that's really fascinating.

Like even, you know, Neat is in that space where you all have come out of the need for us to do this this way. And it's interesting to see all the different experiences that are created through all these different tools. 

Jean Bays: There are different tools and I have to say, so technology, so, and I'm sorry for saying Zoom, but because it became such a brand in 2020, I think.

David Rice: No, it was, it was everywhere. 

Jean Bays: It was Zoom and nothing else back in the days. But of course, I mean, there are many technologies, many platforms around there to make it inclusive, to bring people together, not only in a meeting room or in virtual meeting rooms and have them taking their part of the success story of companies these days.

David Rice: When we think about the future of work itself, there's a lot of thought going into the hybrid experience and what that means for employees. You've mentioned inclusiveness. When we think about meetings in a hybrid setting, what would you say is, the biggest challenge to executing them well in this day and age where like expectations for sort of etiquette and all these things are fairly high?

What do you think is the biggest challenge to having a good hybrid meeting? 

Jean Bays: So first of all, I would like to point out awareness. Awareness and that can start with a little tiny thing of, if you are in a meeting room and you have people joining virtually with their technology, having this awareness that these people are not in the room for all the little chit chats, for all the laughter, and all of that.

So actually really, we just had quarterly business reviews and I thought it's a wonderful thing that our CEO, for example, pointed out, Hey guys, be aware there are three people not in this meeting room. So let's be all aware, let's be all inclusive. Let's be all thoughtful of that. And it's a small thing, but I think still the biggest challenge is that people who are virtually joining, don't feel a part, are not being seen and we try to tackle that.

So we have some wonderful technology available these days where you can even zoom in and out so every speaker will be zoomed in. It will feel like that you are sitting next to your colleague because you see their facial expressions, you see their agreements, their disagreements, you get the little nods, you get the little noises.

I think a big jump in the right direction was back in the days before 2020 and even earlier. So when one would start talking in a virtual meeting, it would cut off all of the other noises. So with the right technology these days, that's no longer an issue, so you can, let's put it politely in the British way, you can overtalk very politely without shutting down all of the conversation that was going on.

So with hybrids as well, what I think is very important, it doesn't matter if you are sitting in your home office on a MacBook, for example. If in the meeting room, the right technology is provided, you can create this inclusiveness, even when you don't have a thousands of dollars video technology in your home office.

So it's the, on the receiving end as well, how much technology can help making people feel inclusive in the meeting and making an impact. And I think for companies out there, it's absolutely, I mean, everyone's talking about finding the right balance, what do we provide people in headquarters or in big office setups and all of that.

And having always in mind, okay, what if 50% of this meeting attendance will be virtual. So how much can we provide from a tech point of view to make this a good experience and make it inclusive for people who are not be there in person, actually. So that's for me, hybrid, I know these days, many people don't like the word, but I mean, it is hybrid at the end of the day. 

I mean, can't think of another word, but of course, giving the choices, but when you give the choices for your workforce, making it as slick and as exclusive as you can for people being visible, even when they are not in the office. So for me, that's a challenge, but I think there are some amazing providers out there who are tackling that every day. Yeah. 

David Rice: Recently I was chatting with a, she's a remote work experience designer and I was asking her about this sort of question. And she said, if you're looking to build an inclusive culture for remote workers, you should have everyone on your, you know, whether it's Zoom or whatever meeting platform it is, whether they're in the office or not.

And while I understand where, you know, where she's coming from and how that might help with sort of the inclusive, just by nature, right? I also feel like it maybe isn't sustainable as a lot of people are going back to offices, like I feel like folks in the office, it might begin to feel a bit, I don't want to say like. 

But it might feel unnecessary and it may in the end, create more division within office people and where they just stop inviting folks to a meeting. I'm curious what your thoughts are, though?

Jean Bays: Yeah. And I totally can relate onto that because I had situations in my previous life where it was like, why I was not invited in that meeting. I was like, Oh yeah, we're so sorry, but we had no one from IT available to start a video conference. I mean, that's likely no longer the case these days because it's getting much easier to initiate this call. 

But what I would answer to that, so first of all, I fully emphasize this thinking around this. So, and I would even say if you do not have the right tech in place in this meeting room, yes, it's better when everyone is sitting in front of their screens to make it a meeting, which is valuable for everyone in there. So, but now looking into the future, there is technology now where you have, even when people sitting on a round table, you can actually zoom in and out of every face.

So people do not have to make this effort anymore because for a lot of people, believe it or not, it's even effort to look right at the end of the table into a camera, and then you have to look into what's happening there. So you don't feel that you can sit relaxed around a table and have these conversations.

So again, coming back with the right technology where you do not have to make this effort, where, where your colleagues outside of the office, virtually, pretty much really one click away and you do not have to install big tech in a meeting room and having your army of IT people all gathering around to help you to call in people around the globe.

The easier you can make this for the people in this meeting room, I think the more people will be not annoyed. They don't have any glitches. They can't sit without looking into one direction, it will be all more inclusive. So I think that's the future. But I fully emphasize and I was one of the ones when we just came out of the pandemic, I was not a big fan of, okay, we have four people in the meeting room and the rest of us is virtually. So we actually asked people, stay at home, do your home office day and be on Zoom because otherwise we cannot make this happen from a meeting. 

So, but for the future, there are options and they are pretty amazing. So it will feel a very useful tool without people having the big effort into and then maybe thinking, oh yeah, so maybe we should not invite Gene from London to that. Yeah. 

David Rice: The logistics have gotten more complicated for sure. 

Do you think employee expectations for meetings are changing? Like we're all surrounded by, like, like you mentioned, there's just some incredible technology and we're actually surrounded about it. Like when we go out in our personal lives as well, right? We're seeing VR, we're seeing augmented reality, the metaverse, all these things. And they're becoming more common for people to use them. 

And we've all kind of been raised, I would say, on like Hollywood images of what the future would look like. So is it sort of time that we all deep dive into what our meetings feel and look like and start to like experiment a little bit?

Jean Bays: I think if you remember, so the very beginning of the pandemic when this technology was much more used. I think so, so many people, I can't remember team meetings where pretty much 80% of the people would not show their face. They would not show their face. There would be completely being off camera, just sometimes say a little beep, maybe, or stuff like that.

Then of course there was this era where all this little gadgets, we all remember the judge with the little cat and all of that. So that became really a trend. But so for the future, I think, what people would expect it's, is, or what we have to deep dive into is pretty much this, the way how we are working.

And I think people expect us what the company leaderships and all of that to engage and introduce a new way of working. And I think all of the major platforms, what they developed is actually, instead of going over to the other office and have a little chat at the coffee machine or stuff like that, I mean, look at the big ones like Microsoft Teams or Zoom or stuff like that. With one click, you can do an instant meeting that feels like, okay, are you available for a quick chat?

So I think the future is not about glamor and how to make it more glitzy, but it's more the practice around how we communicate. So is it the quick check in and I do that with my team. So sometimes in the mornings I do just a little quick check in. If someone is available, that's fine. If someone is not available for quick check in, that's fine as well.

How it would happen in an office? So if I would sit in an office and I'm working on something and I'm not available, I will let this person know. I don't know if that's answering your question, but this is how I envision this a little bit from a practical point in the future. So it's much more about behavior and how we communicate and what's okay.

And so some, I don't know, some discipline around it to define that in a new way. 

David Rice: So before we go, there's two things I always like to do. The first is I want to give you a chance to tell people more about where they can connect with you and find out more about what you have going on. 

Jean Bays: Yeah. So you can connect with me, go on our website. So it's neat.no. NO stands for Norway. And there is a company profile where you will find my profile as well. This will bring you right to my LinkedIn profile, but I'm more than happy as well to connect on email, if there are specific questions or you wouldn't, you would like to find out more.

So go on our website, you will find my profile there and my LinkedIn profile as well, so, and I would be more than happy to discuss or share ideas or hear from you wherever you are, so yeah, just let me know. 

David Rice: The last thing is we have a little tradition here on the podcast where you get to ask me a question, so I wanna turn it over to you.

You can ask me anything you want. Doesn't have to be related to this. 

Jean Bays: Oh, that's a very good thing. So David, I mean, you are talking to industry experts and you must hear so, so many things. So for you, only for you, what do you think, when we talk about the employer of choice, because I mean, I think we all did great our homeworks on parks and office environments and hybrid work, working from anywhere.

So we did a lot. So over the last century, but what do you think companies should focus on in the future to become the employer of choice? So is there any secret trend you can see, is there anything you would say, I think this is the one you should concentrate on to be the employer of choice? 

David Rice: I think it's around skills, cause we're in this moment where a lot of the things that we traditionally developed our skills to do, they may get outsource essentially to something that can do it a lot faster and eventually it'll do it, it'll do it at the same level. Right? So I think what we have to think about is like, well, what does it mean to be a human being at work?

What is the things that you want people specifically to bring and then help them, I think companies are gonna have to be a lot more supportive. You can't leave it on the employee to figure it out to acquire skills. You've got to, like, lead them on a, like, engage with them about what the journey looks like and then figure out how you're going to help them get there. 

Because it's possible that 30 years from now we live in a world where the fact that we work is really just like a choice, because it's what we do as human beings that you have to have some value in your day. Right? So, there will always be jobs I'm sure that are going to be, done by human beings.

But what I mean is, is like when I think about especially the future of the knowledge of economy and these jobs. It's going to be about figuring out what is irreplaceable human value. How do you train people on those? I think we're probably going to have to move away from traditional roles and like job profiles.

And it's going to become more like what skills can this person bring to this situation that makes them uniquely qual. And yeah, I think that's going to be an area of great experimentation, some horrible failures. And, but there'll also be a lot of successes and we'll find what works for us in that process.

It's going to be, I think there's a possibility of some growing pains, but it's part of it. Yeah. That's what I would say. 

Jean Bays: Interesting. Thank you for that. So I've learned and it already gave me really some thoughts what we did back in the days with job rotating, for example, to develop new skills and knowledge and all of that.

And yes, we've learned, even back in the days, we've learned some lessons. But all in all, it was very beneficial. Yeah. 

David Rice: That's a great experiment to run, you know. Okay. Well, thank you, Jean. I really appreciate you coming on. This was a good talk. 

Jean Bays: Thank you. Thank you, David. 

David Rice: All right listeners, until next time. If you haven't signed up for our newsletter, dude, head on over to peoplemanagingpeople.com/subscribe and get signed up and we will see you next time.

Until then, enjoy some sunshine. The sun's coming out everywhere, I think. Get those shorts on and, you know, find a body of water to hang out by.