Workplace meetings, including of science teams, have changed from face-to-face to virtual due to COVID-19 mitigations and then back again. The effects of these modes on productivity, collaboration, and innovation have been debated in organizational psychology (Gibson et al., 2023), but less so the needs of workers with disabilities in different meeting modes. While team researchers have examined many kinds of demographic diversity, disability diversity is relatively understudied. Using the constrained Census definitions of disability, 3% of STEM workers report at least one disability (NCSES, 2023). That noted, HCI researchers have examined the effects of technology on workers with disabilities (e.g., Tang, 2021), including the barriers and opportunities of hybrid meetings on disabled workers (Alharbi et al., 2023).

The goal of this ongoing study is to better understand the challenges, opportunities, and effects on disabled workers of team meeting mode, be it face-to-face, virtual/remote, or hybrid. Hybrid meetings can involve workers as either the remote or in-person team members.

We conducted semi-structured interviews with 15 participants (so far): 67% identify as women, 20% as nonbinary, and 13% as men, with an average age of 35 (23-59). Given the breadth of conditions that can require accommodations, we used self-identification rather than the Census definitions. The participants identified as having a wide variety of disabilities including chronic illness, physical disabilities, cognitive impairment, and learning disabilities.

Participants were recruited via disability listservs and via U.S. organizations that listed disability affinity groups. The interviews consisted of three sections centering lived experiences with team meetings and requested recall of two critical incidents. Questions covered aspects of technology usage, benefits, drawbacks, and frustrations with team meeting modality, and characteristics of ideal meetings. We are conducting thematic analysis of the transcribed interviews and will conduct iterative and reliability coding.

Preliminary findings indicate that participants are most concerned about communication barriers, regardless of the meeting format. Poor audiovisual quality was the most common barrier to participation, negatively affecting participants with all types of disabilities. Participants with both physical and non-physical disabilities cited hybrid and virtual options as an accessible accommodation, even if their preference was for in-person meetings.

Commentary emerged on the issue of conflicting accommodations, such as the use of captioning that is necessary for one participant causing significant nausea in another. While some participants cited a need for visual connection with meeting attendees, others cited camera-off meetings as an accessibility option that allowed them to work through pain or discomfort when they otherwise would not have been able to attend meetings. Though this point was asserted as a benefit, it raises concerns about expectations of presenteeism instead of using sick time.

Participant feedback on ideal meeting features centered around facilitation, planning, and logistical considerations, regardless of meeting format. Agendas, post-meeting notes, and detailed information about the digital and physical accessibility accommodations of an upcoming meeting were the main participant requests. We will continue data collection and analysis through 2024.