The Hybrid Us vs. Them
A growing rift where in-office employees feel remote colleagues are disconnected or slacking, while remote workers feel invisible, excluded from key conversations, and passed over for opportunities.
If you are in a hybrid meeting right now and feel the physical room pulling away from your remote colleagues, you must intervene immediately to level the playing field. Use this step-by-step guide to reset the dynamic in real time.
Action
Acknowledge the Elephant in the Room Interrupt the flow of the meeting to call out the imbalance directly but neutrally. This signals that you care about equity and are paying attention. *Say this:* "Let's pause our conversation for a second. I'm noticing that our discussion is heavily concentrated among those of us sitting in this physical room, and we haven't heard from our colleagues online. We need everyone's perspective to make the right decision here, so I want to pause the room and adjust our approach."
Action
Enforce a Remote-First Speaking Order Flip the power dynamic by giving remote participants the first right of refusal on the current topic. This forces the physical room to stop talking and listen. *Say this:* "From this point forward, we are going to use a remote-first rule for this discussion. Whenever I open the floor for questions, ideas, or feedback, I will ask our remote colleagues to speak first. Remote team, please use the hand-raise tool or simply unmute, and I will call on you. Let's start now: [Name], what are your thoughts on what we just discussed?"
Action
Appoint a Digital Advocate in the Room It is incredibly difficult to facilitate a physical room and monitor a digital chat window at the same time. Delegate this responsibility to someone in the physical room to act as an ally for remote participants. *Say this:* "[Name], since you are here in the room, could you act as our 'Digital Advocate' for the rest of this meeting? Please keep the chat window open, watch for raised hands, and interrupt us physically in the room whenever a remote colleague posts a comment, question, or reaction. Treat their digital input with the exact same priority as someone speaking at this table."
Action
Shut Down Side Conversations Instantly Side chatter in a physical room creates a wall of background noise that makes it impossible for remote participants to hear or follow the main thread. *Say this:* "Let's keep it to one mic, please. I hear a couple of side conversations starting at the table. If it's worth saying, it's worth saying to the whole group so our remote colleagues can hear and contribute. Let's make sure we aren't creating a parallel meeting that they are locked out of."
Action
Document Decisions in Real-Time on a Shared Screen Stop relying on verbal agreements in the physical room. Bring up a shared digital document and type out decisions as they happen to ensure alignment across locations. *Say this:* "To ensure we are all on the exact same page, I am sharing my screen with our shared digital document. Any decision we agree on in this meeting must be typed here before we move on to the next agenda item. If it's not written down here for everyone to see, we haven't officially decided on it yet."
Later today, schedule a brief 1-on-1 with a few remote team members. Ask them: "How did the hybrid dynamic feel to you today? Did you feel included, and what can I do next time to make the playing field more level?" Use their feedback to establish a permanent 'one remote, all remote' policy for high-stakes meetings, where even in-office employees join from their own laptops to ensure equal presence.
- In-office team members huddle in physical rooms after a hybrid meeting ends, making decisions that remote participants miss entirely.
- Remote participants stay on mute with cameras off, while in-office colleagues dominate the airtime and physical space.
- Passive-aggressive comments or 'jokes' about remote workers 'working in pajamas' or being 'hard to reach'.
- Side-channel messaging apps are filled with venting and siloed complaints about 'the other group'.
- Remote team members are frequently forgotten, talked over, or ignored during fast-paced brainstorming sessions.
- In-office employees express underlying resentment about commuting costs and effort while others 'get to stay home'.
- Crucial context, updates, and decisions are shared informally at the watercooler but never documented for remote colleagues.
- A clear split in meeting energy: high-volume, dynamic collaboration in the room, and total silence on the video screen.
- Proximity bias: the subconscious human tendency to favor, trust, and reward people who are physically closer to us.
- Asymmetrical communication channels where informal, in-person conversations bypass official digital documentation systems.
- Lack of explicit, co-created hybrid meeting etiquette and clear rules of engagement for mixed environments.
- Outdated performance management systems that reward visibility and 'presenteeism' over actual output and impact.
- Inadequate meeting room technology, such as poor audio coverage or fixed cameras, that makes remote participants feel like passive observers.
- Underlying organizational resentment regarding perceived unfairness around flexibility, autonomy, and commute burdens.
- Leadership modeling bad behavior by only consulting in-office staff for critical, last-minute decisions.
- Natural human tribalism, where physical co-location automatically creates an 'in-group' and 'out-group' dynamic.