Since the pandemic essentially shut down all in-person business meetings in March 2020, IR teams have been operating in a mostly virtual environment. There have been many innovations in the way that teams have communicated with investors and prospects over this time period, and there are now questions of when we will return to "normal" in-person activities.

This topic is one our clients ask about all the time, so we surveyed IR teams across various industries and market caps to understand how teams are currently thinking about returning to in-person meetings; COVID-19 testing, vaccination mandates and other considerations; and ultimately whether executives and IR teams prefer to return to pre-pandemic practices or to balance virtual and in-person meetings in a different way going forward.

The results are in from 200+ North American IR professionals. Many teams are planning to return to in-person meetings before the end of this year, and most are planning a return to in-person in 2022. At the same time, many teams see significant value in the flexibility of virtual meetings, so it appears that the majority of companies will continue to leverage virtual engagement significantly long after the pandemic subsides.

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This article was published by S&P Global Market Intelligence and not by S&P Global Ratings, which is a separately managed division of S&P Global.