It’s a fallacy to assume that companies are either staunch traditionalists that demand real-space meetings or daring digital adventurers who want to do away with the office altogether. Plenty of companies are being forced to be more flexible, embracing a hybrid approach. But how do you manage team building, social events, and mental fitness in this kind of fractured environment? We’ll show you here how!
In simplest terms, a Hybrid Event is one in which there is both a virtual component and a “physical” component as well. If you held a meeting at your office and certain team members had to attend remotely, that would be a hybrid event. Similarly, if you streamed a presentation online, but there was also a physical audience, that would also count as a hybrid event.
For some companies that would prefer to be purely physical, hybrid events are simply a “second best” option to getting everyone in the office. However, if you carefully plan your hybrid office events ideas, you can make your hybrid events more than the sum of their parts.
That said, running hybrid events can be tricky. The main challenge in running hybrid events comes from the issue of balance. If you focus too much on the physical event, people tuning in are going to feel disconnected. If you focus too heavily on making a cool virtual office, and on group activities to do online, you are going to leave the people who attended physically feeling like they are missing out on something.
However, in order to reach that balance, you might need to go the extra mile in terms of resources and time. In some cases you might need to ask yourself the question – is it worth doing this event as a hybrid? Or would it be better to focus on a single aspect, or even divide the event into two? If you are setting up a hybrid event, it’s best to do it for something that won’t work in another format.
So what exactly can you use the Hybrid Office Model for? What are the events that work best in a hybrid setting? One main reason to use the hybrid event model is if it’s the only scale that will work. If you want to get absolutely everyone in your company into a meeting, for example, it might not be feasible for everyone to attend. The solution? Host a physical conference, but stream it to all your remote employees. What is important is that it needs to be a live stream, with an actual moderator keeping track of the online component. You should be sure that even those working from home are able to ask questions and contribute to the conversation.
Another idea for a time when hybrid office events excel is when you are doing a product launch or demonstration. This is especially true if your company is in the business of making some sort of physical commodity. Actually having someone in a real room somewhere using the product is a great way to get an idea of how it works and its capabilities. If you designed a new robot vacuum cleaner, for example, people are going to want to watch it clean. You can have your employees present to help you test, while still broadcasting the event to potential customers or investors.
Hybrid events are also a fun chance to host events without excluding your remote workers. If you do any company team-building events at the office, it’s a good idea to provide group activities to do online concurrent with the physical meeting. A lot of great virtual team-building activities (think icebreaker questions) work just as well online as in person.
This attention to those doing remote work is a great way to make sure they don’t feel isolated. If you’re looking for other ways to boost employee well-being, even remotely, make sure to check out our corporate programs which accommodate remote, hybrid, and in-person environments.
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