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PRAESCO
Studenten im Sommer auf dem Campus Nord, rote Zahnräder im Hintergrund © Roland Baege​/​TU Dortmund

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Asymmetries in Hybrid Meetings: Initial Findings from the PRAESCO Questionnaire Study

An illustration of a video conferencing system's user interface. In the center, a person is speaking. Surrounding them are four screens showing people who are actively participating in the meeting. On the outer edge are small speech bubbles with people who are only peripherally involved. © Ali Askari​/​TU Dortmund
Asymmetries in hybrid meetings are commonplace, but how do they affect our well-being?

As part of the PRAESCO collaborative project, the IAT at the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences used an online questionnaire (duration: December 2, 2025 – February 8, 2026, n=170) to examine the experiences of remote and in-person participants in hybrid meetings. The results reveal surprising patterns: The remote side is not always the “losing side.” To learn what this means for the design of hybrid collaboration and which digital innovations could mitigate such asymmetries in the future, read the publication by Sarwary & Enste (2026), featured in the IAT newsletter *Forschung Aktuell* (Issue 10/2026).

 

Key findings:

  • General Attitude: Hybrid work and hybrid meetings tend to be viewed positively, and the elimination of travel stress is cited as a key factor reducing stress; 80% of respondents agree that hybrid meetings enable productive collaboration.
  • “Missing out” asymmetry: At the same time , remote participants report significantly more often (≈47% vs. ≈5% for in-person participants) that they miss content or find it harder to contribute to discussions—an asymmetry that can lead to stress and a feeling of “being left behind” in the long term.
  • Exhaustion: Surprisingly, in-person participation tends to be perceived as slightly more exhausting than remote participation—a finding that can be explained, among other things, by the absence of travel stress associated with remote participation.
  • Overall picture: Despite discernible asymmetries, this does not lead to a fundamentally negative assessment of hybrid meetings; the perceived flexibility and reduced travel stress outweigh these issues.

 

The authors discuss these findings as a starting point for developing targeted digital innovations that address the identified asymmetries and further develop hybrid collaboration as a qualitatively new space for experience.

A complete description of the survey methodology, the initial results, and the research questions derived from them can be found in the publication:

https://www.iat.eu/media/forschung_aktuell_2026-10.pdf

Additional publications from PRAESCO can be found here.

 

References:

Sarwary, H. & Enste, P. (2026): Hybrid Meetings—Asymmetrical, Exhausting, and/or Enriching? Forschung Aktuell, 2026 (10). Gelsenkirchen: Institute for Work and Technology, Westphalian University of Applied Sciences Gelsenkirchen Bocholt Recklinghausen. https://doi.org/10.53190/fa/202610

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