No, I think there IS something ✨magic✨ about in-person interactions, that builds trust soooo much faster & deeper than you can online.
We evolved to build trust and bond this way -- face to face.
It is full spectrum emotional transmission, whereas text is just a trickle.
https://bsky.app/profile/jenniferplusplus.com/post/3lq4iscfae22l
We evolved to build trust and bond this way -- face to face.
It is full spectrum emotional transmission, whereas text is just a trickle.
https://bsky.app/profile/jenniferplusplus.com/post/3lq4iscfae22l
Reposted from
Jenniferplusplus
The difference is not being in-person vs remote. The difference is trust.
If your in-person teams have higher trust, it's because they have more opportunity to build trust. But that's not some magic of being face-to-face. It's that they have more opportunity to interact without being surveilled.
If your in-person teams have higher trust, it's because they have more opportunity to build trust. But that's not some magic of being face-to-face. It's that they have more opportunity to interact without being surveilled.
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Those same needs exist every day — you just aren’t there to see them.
Always exceptions, but I default to camera on and I think it makes a difference.
I've thought about this a lot. I too would struggle with it.
But I know it would be good for me if I did. ☹️
I don't like what all-remote work is doing what to me. My tolerance for humans just keeps shrinking. It's scary.
It got me out of the house every day. It got me exercising. A 30-45 min walk or bike ride each way was perfect.
I had better work/life boundaries. I left my laptop at work. I had more friends. My social batteries were much bigger.
My home life (kids!) and the state of the world has drained my social batteries a LOT. And while it’s easier to make plans with others when you’re already “out”, for me, there’s also “I’ve been OUT all day, I want to go home.”
I think being aware of the limits is great, and it’s ok to say “we are all remote and that’s not the best environment for some” and try not to hire people who will be miserable.
commutes are hours long. work follows you home.
the last time I experienced this was, truly, like 1994. Before laptops and cell phones.
I wonder if she realizes that some people can't bike to work in 45 minutes either?
But humans are FAMOUSLY BAD at predicting what is actually good for us or will make us happy.
I don't WANT to leave the house, ever!
But if I zoom out...it's better for me when I have that external structure.
But i also think it's a personal preference/adaptation thing: irl meetings cost me the same amount of energy as online. That's different for many.
https://bsky.app/profile/charity.wtf/post/3lq4dimsmqs24
we still have an office, but we are not going to order folks to RTO, so .. it's just never really spun back up. people have offsites there, but most days nobody goes into the office. and since nobody's there, nobody goes in. etc. 💔
For ex: Was you last office a focussed 6 person team room or a 100 person OO shared with sales?
There are vanishingly few of those in the tech industry, sadly.
I want to do all-in-person, but that isn't reasonable with our team.
We're going to figure it out. We need more realists and fewer cheerleaders for either side.
I literally think differently in person, and those muscles have atrophied. It’s weird.
But more seriously, I haven't worked with a team where we were all in the same time zone in years and being fully remote lets me live in Jackson Hole rather than a place I or my wife or both would hate (looking at Houston).
We’ve lost a few persons that loved the job and the company, but needed the in-person interactions and moved to hybrid/on-site companies.
We were their first fully remote engineering team and did not have nearby offices… so RTO for them meant changing companies.
When a company hires 100s of kilometers away from any office, there is no RTO possible, no hybrid setup that works, etc…
People can only Return to Office if they ever had one.
There are offices I would go back to (if I wasn’t bringing extra skills to remote teams), but it isn’t most of the offices currently available.
Small groups still have good psych safety, but anything over five people and it goes downhill.
I wonder if the inability to pick up on reactions to what you're saying in real time makes it harder to have that kind of psych safety.
E.g: Is your only interaction via PRs or text-chat? Or camera-on video? Only ever with your 'squad', or with other 'communities of practice'? Still fear of "wasting time" on chats remote? When IRL wld be unconcerned?
And it's not always easy to predict where the potholes will be.