Retrofitting Meetings for Psychological Safety

Abstract: Meetings are the fuel of organizations' productivity. At times, however, they are perceived as wasteful vaccums that deplete employee morale and productivity. Current meeting tools, to a great extent, have simplified and augmented the ways meetings are conducted by enabling participants to ``get things done'' and experience a comfortable physical environment. However, an important yet less explored element of these tools' design space is that of psychological safety -- the extent to which participants feel listened to, or motivated to be part of a meeting. We argue that an interdisciplinary approach would benefit the creation of new tools designed for retrofitting meetings for psychological safety. This approach comes with not only research opportunities -- ranging from sensing to modeling to user interface design -- but also challenges -- ranging from privacy to workplace surveillance.