Combating Social Isolation of Remote Work

Still in Draft

This document is not ready for the reader. I probably reference it in another article though and so... here you are! Read on if you'd like, but it may be best to wait until I complete it.

[1] [2] [3] [4]

When you're working together in an office, physical presence often provides a lot of the connective tissue for the team. You can learn about your coworkers by seeing how they decorate their desk, or listening to what they talk about at lunch. You can gauge the general tone of the company by looking around the office and seeing what people are working on, see who's available and who's on break or vacation by counting empty seats. If you have a question or need help with something, you may not know the exact person you should talk to, but you probably know what part of the office they work in, so you can walk over there and find someone to make an introduction.

In a hybrid or remote workplace, none of that holds true anymore. There's no real passive way to get to know the company, your team, what's going on, and how things are doing. Every interaction when you're working remotely is active—unless you go out of your way to check in with people, it doesn't happen. As a result, it's hard to form tight bonds with your colleagues or interact with them at all in a way that doesn't focus on a specific project or goal.

What kills me the most about this is that it's often a hidden problem because it affects different workers differently. If you are a manager or someone who's very senior in your career or at a company, you probably have a good handle on what you should be doing and who you need to talk to, and you probably find it easy to keep your finger on the pulse of the company. But if you're a more junior employee, someone who's new to the team, or someone who's coming to the work from a different background than the rest of your coworkers, these things can be very opaque to you as a remote worker. Even if you're highly skilled, you may not get the mentorship or collaboration on a remote team that you need to succeed. So this lack of connective tissue isn't just bad for morale and productivity. It's also fundamentally unfair. - Source. Ray Hong, Co-founder & CEO of Allo