Great essay. I used to manage a team that was half based in Europe, and half in the US. So in a way it was like WFH before WFH was cool. At least for my European staff. I ended up scheduling a 1 hour chat time every week with each European colleague just to talk - no agenda, just whatever came up. Sometimes it would be about what they were working on, sometimes it would be personal, but it helped fill in for those missing spontaneous hallway chats. The key takeaway in my mind is that the connections had to be intentional. I could not depend on random chance.
We just had a random Slack convo at work around "who was the best spider-man" and it was so much fun. 100% agree these types of non-work banter sessions are essential.
Great essay. I used to manage a team that was half based in Europe, and half in the US. So in a way it was like WFH before WFH was cool. At least for my European staff. I ended up scheduling a 1 hour chat time every week with each European colleague just to talk - no agenda, just whatever came up. Sometimes it would be about what they were working on, sometimes it would be personal, but it helped fill in for those missing spontaneous hallway chats. The key takeaway in my mind is that the connections had to be intentional. I could not depend on random chance.
We just had a random Slack convo at work around "who was the best spider-man" and it was so much fun. 100% agree these types of non-work banter sessions are essential.