virtual meetings Vs in person meetings

Years are counting and many of the norms we have been used to could possibly have changed forever, it is common to read reports over the increased penetration of ecommerce due to COVID 19 outbreak and how consumers purchasing patterns have permanently changed, I myself have advocated in one of the articles; that the change that took place in buying behavior in ecommerce is here to stay. However, one aspect that I found interesting is the change in business meetings!! Is it here to stay as well??

Few years ago, meetings online were not that prevalent/common and you would expect to only meet overseas colleagues/customers online, not a person who is few kilometers away (in some instances, in the same building). With the recent COVID controls & regulations relaxing people now are allowed to gather in small groups again but it seems people still prefer to meet online for the obvious reasons of convenience, working from home setups…etc. in fact, in a poll conducted by nature magazine, 75% of the respondents suggested that conferences should continue online even post-pandemic, citing reasons such as accessibility, lower carbon foot print and lower costs as some of the reasons. Interestingly, in the same pole, 69% of the people marked poor networking opportunities as the major draw-back.

Would introverts feel less intimidated asking questions in virtual sessions, hence the preference to keep sessions online? Or is it what was labelled by the researchers at Brown University over, humans being programmed to hate a physical activity (we take escalators vs. stairs, choose to walk on a flat landscape Vs climbing a hill), hence, the preference to do a task from the comfort of their home or desk that made them choose to keep the meetings, sessions or conferences online? Are these figures skewed by different age brackets, for example, 70% of millennials say going to office is not necessary anymore (Frost, 2019).

I have read some articles recommending initial meetings to be face to face and followed up by online meetings, while this sounds like a plausible idea, I have gathered some statistics that shows why the old-fashioned face to face meetings are indeed important taken from Frost (2019)

85% of jobs are filled through networking.

72% of people said their impressions are impacted by how you appear and their handshake.

68% of entry professionals value face to face networking more than online.

Only 11% of LinkedIn users have more than 100 people in their network.

The average company would lose 17% of its profits if it eliminated business travel.

For every dollar companies invest in travel, they receive $12.5 in value.

In a study done by the greatbusinessschool.org (2021), Remote/virtual meetings generate on average 10.43 ideas, while in-person meetings generate 13.36 ideas and that is because face to face meetings are more focused and productive, we are social beings, whether introverts or extroverts, 7% of what we communicate we communicate verbally, 38% is through the way the words are spoken and 55% is through body language and facial expressions.

Face to Face meetings will not go away, however, the thought that online /virtual meetings are a 100% replacement of physical ones in my opinion is wrong. ??