The company published: “The Evolution of Hybrid Work: A Three-Year Analysis,” to identify hybrid work culture trends.

Vyopta, a leader in digital collaboration and experience optimization, released “The Evolution of Hybrid Work: A Three-Year Analysis.” This paper analyzed over 48 million meetings held in 2020, 2021, and 2022 by enterprise knowledge workers on virtual meeting platforms to identify emerging trends in hybrid work culture.

“COVID has caused the greatest disruption to our workplace since the first Industrial Revolution, and its heaviest impact was on how we collaborate,” said Mike Tolliver, Vyopta Product Management Director.

This study measured engagement trends over time and studied how the workforce is adapting to remote-first and hybrid collaboration. Vyopta compared samples of meeting data from six-week periods in 2020, 2021, and 2022, and has found the following clear trends:

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More Meetings, Shorter Duration

Since 2020, the number of virtual meetings per week for the average knowledge worker increased while the meeting duration decreased. The increased number of short meetings may suggest changing dynamics in a remote/hybrid environment. In addition, the average number of participants decreased, reversing the prior trend noted early in the pandemic in other research. The drop in the average number of participants is mostly driven by the increase in 1:1 meetings.

The Rise of Ad Hoc 1:1 Virtual Meetings

The most notable finding was the growth of 1:1 virtual meetings from 17% in 2020 to 42% in 2022. The increase in meeting volume is propelled by a significant increase in ad hoc one-on-one (1:1) meetings, indicating a shift in how employees are using the technology and engaging with each other.

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A Shifting Meeting Culture

Meeting culture and familiarity with the technology both improved during the study time period with 17% fewer participants arriving late and a 57% reduction in rejoins. Vyopta also found that as organizations began returning to the office (mostly on hybrid schedules), there was not a significant impact the on the number of meetings held virtually. Lastly, in analyzing meeting duration and partial attendance (the average portion of the full meeting a participant attended), the data shows that employees and managers are continuing to optimize their time by only attending the parts of meeting which are relevant to them.

The Connection with Retention

Vyopta also analyzed the metrics for meaningful correlations between collaboration and employee retention and the attrition group participated in 29% fewer meetings overall. The difference was disproportionately concentrated in 1:1 meetings. Looking specifically at 1:1s, the primary factor was ad hoc 1:1s with baseline employees participating in nearly 3x more than the attrition group. Other notable discoveries were that employees who left were 22% less likely to host their own meetings, joined 7.5% more meetings late and experienced 46% more reconnect issues.

“These trends offer novel insight into the factors impacting effective hybrid collaboration and includes deeper analysis and recommendations that can lead to improved employee experience, removing barriers to productivity and wellness,” said Alfredo Ramirez, CEO of Vyopta.