In the initial months of the pandemic, remote work seemed full of upsides: more flexibility for employees and an expectation of greater profits, productivity and retention for their employers. But what if the long-studied benefits of remote work look different in a post-pandemic world? In particular, what if employee loyalty and engagement decrease once remote work is no longer an exception but rather the norm? And what if that’s not a bad thing? What if a more disconnected work force leads to changes that could make employees happier and companies more compassionate?
I’m a fan of remote work, but it presents unique challenges in helping staffs feel connected to their teammates and the company.
In my previous job as an executive at a large technology company, I managed teams across some 40 satellite and home offices. We relied on email, video conferences and chat services to help keep our employees around the world connected. But if a remote employee complained about a lack of support from co-workers at headquarters or felt disconnected from the larger team, a manager’s advice often had nothing to do with technology. Instead, it was utterly human: Come spend a week meeting your colleagues.
Since March, millions of white-collar workers have been living the disconnected experience of the remote worker for the first time.
Early reports from the corporate world were rosy, as employees swapped suits for sweatpants and found new flexibility in their work and home lives. Many companies reported higher productivity than ever before, not analyzing whether that productivity was tied to employee flexibility or the fact that people were locked inside, terrified of losing their jobs.
We’re now seeing the cracks, as employers and employees start to voice their concerns about the long-term, isolating impact of remote work.
Managers have tried creative ways to bring their staffs together. My friends’ calendars are filled with video conference happy hours and trivia nights. An acquaintance told me he leaves a group video chat open all day so that the employees at his start-up can work together as they did in their open office. I know another boss who has short but more frequent catch-ups so that she can maintain a bit of banter with her management team.
But it just isn’t the same. The once-weekly video conference happy hours held by one friend’s San Francisco start-up have become monthly. Even then, attendance falls with each passing month.
At Facebook, which has said it expects to make as much as half of its full-time jobs remote over the next 10 years, people miss the mini-kitchens and team lunches. One executive there told me, it’s not so much the perks themselves as it is the connection they provided. “It’s hard to reproduce the magic,” he told me. “People don’t want to spend any more time connecting over video chat than they have to.”