Death of The Water Cooler Chat

Fostering Human Connections in a Remote-First World

The COVID-19 pandemic clearly accelerated a global shift towards remote work, fundamentally altering the traditional office-centric paradigm. While some companies are eagerly pushing for a full return to the office, others are embracing hybrid and fully remote models. A dialogue that companies will continue to have for many years to come, but I think we all know that the likelihood of returning to an office Monday-Friday is not probable.

Let me go back in time for a moment and share my experiences during the early days of the COVID lock down. While the memories are there, they feel distant. I’d imagine this phenomenon being similar to how our brain responds to any traumatic event. However, my last pre-pandemic day in the office remains very clear. With only limited knowledge of the seriousness that this virus presented, we were informed that an employee on the floor above us contracted COVID and within hours, we were all sent home. I remember walking to Union Station in Chicago and getting on the train home expecting that I’d be back in the city on Monday after the office was properly disinfected. That Monday never came and as the severity of the situation grew, the realization that we’d be working from home for the foreseeable future set in. 

Having worked remotely for 4 years prior, my home office setup was dialed in and the transition was pretty easy. For others, it was much, much harder juggling work, virtual schooling and both parents vying for quiet space in the house to take their next meeting. Not exactly the work-life balance we were hoping for. Babies crying, dogs barking and kids asking mom what’s for lunch all while on a Zoom call became normalized pretty quickly. My favorite moment was when a customer’s daughter informed her dad in front of the 5 others on the call that she “pooped on the floor”. He looked at all of us and said “I’m so sorry but I’ll be right back” with a look of shock, horror and embarrassment on his face. 

The speed of the shift was rapid but as humans always do, we adapted. One example of adaptation was from a co-worker of mine who for the first 2 months was miserable working from home and quite vocal about it. It was primarily a function of being in a tight space on the lower east side of Manhattan. By month 3, she had her home office set up and she started to admit that she really enjoyed working from home. This experience was not unique to her but to many. As the months turned into well-over a year, I think most of us began to feel the same way as we settled into our new reality.

With COVID now in the rearview mirror, there has been no shortage of companies putting a “return to office” mandate in place. Typically under the guise of human connections being needed to drive collaboration and company performance. But if you ask me, it’s driven by the need for a renewed control of the workforce. In the old days, leaders knew where their employees were and they could identify the committed ones based on the time they arrived in the morning and left in the evening. Forget about the 2 hour lunches or 45 minute run to Starbucks with a team of 5 people, what mattered was that they knew where you were. Your mere presence at the office held a lot of weight with no mind on actual in-office productivity. While the pandemic was a relatively short amount of time, it was long enough to shift employee sentiment away from the old way of thinking. The fear of going back to the old days is precisely what’s driving pushback from employees when asked to return to the office. We’re also finding out the negative impacts this decision can have on employee retention and the struggles it creates for recruitment efforts.

This is validated by the “Greenhouse Candidate Experience” report and Unispace’s “Returning for Good” report.

Here are few of their finding:

• 42% of companies with return-to-office mandates witnessed a higher level of employee attrition than they had anticipated

• 29% of companies enforcing office returns say that recruiting talent has become more challenging

• 76% of employees would actively search or be open to a new job if their company rolled back flexible work policies

While I have very little interest in a full return to the office, I do firmly believe that human interaction is critical for strengthening teams and fostering collaboration. After all, some of the best days we’ve had at work are not the easy ones. They are the really hard ones when the team comes together to solve a complex organizational problem. Those late nights in the office eating subpar pizza actually solidified the team and built mutual trust and respect. 

So, herein lies the challenge that companies are faced with. How to ensure that collaboration doesn’t suffer when a full return to the office is unlikely. Making this challenge worse, our teams have become dispersed across the country with many employees having relocated during the pandemic. On top of that many companies reaped the benefits of a talent pool not constrained by geography further spreading out the teams. My belief is that a balance is possible but requires a concerted effort by leaders.

As stated in “Together: The Healing Power of Human Connection” by Surgeon General Vivek, Hallegere Murthy.

“What often matters is not the quantity or frequency of social contact but the quality of our connections and how we feel about them.”

This quote resonates with me and has helped me think about the impact that needs to come from the limited time that we now have together, in person. Whether a team retreat, summit or attending a conference, every minute together now matters more than ever. As leaders, I’d recommend looking at the year ahead and identifying opportunities to make in-person meetings a reality. If a conference is coming up, capitalize on the travels and fly the team in a day early for some 1:1 time. If there are not pre-scheduled opportunities to connect in person, create those opportunities. While there is a cost associated with doing so, this should be viewed as an investment and not an expense. When those moments happen, remind yourself that the work stuff can get done remotely but the human connections cannot. No matter how brief your time is together, the benefits are many and the effects are felt long after everyone returns home. 

Some benefits include:

1. Enhanced Communication and Collaboration: Face-to-face interactions allow for more nuanced communication and collaboration compared to virtual interactions. Non-verbal cues, body language, and facial expressions provide additional context and facilitate better understanding, reducing the risk of misunderstandings and fostering a more cohesive team dynamic.

2. Building Rapport and Trust: In-person interactions enable team members to build stronger rapport and trust, which are essential for effective collaboration. Shared experiences, personal interactions, and opportunities for informal conversations strengthen bonds between team members, creating a foundation for mutual respect and open communication.

3. Cultural Alignment and Shared Values: In-person gatherings provide an opportunity to reinforce company culture, foster a sense of belonging, and align on shared values. Team-building activities, shared experiences, and discussions about company values help to create a cohesive team identity and strengthen the connection between individuals and the organization.

4. Addressing Workplace Silos and Fostering Cross-Functional Collaboration: In-person interactions can help to break down silos between departments and encourage cross-functional collaboration. Opportunities to interact with colleagues from different teams can lead to a broader understanding of the organization's goals and facilitate collaboration on projects that span multiple departments.

5. Creative Problem-Solving and Idea Generation: Brainstorming sessions and problem-solving discussions can be more effective when conducted in person. The energy and spontaneity of face-to-face interactions can spark creative ideas and facilitate more engaged participation, leading to more innovative dialogue and breakthrough thinking.

These benefits are real and paramount to the success of all organizations as we navigate the evolution of our new work reality. To me, it's evident that the pre-pandemic office-centric experience is no longer a model for success. While in-person interactions undoubtedly matter most, the rise of remote work has demonstrated that flexibility and work-life balance are equally crucial. Embracing this notion with a focus on making human connections a priority, when possible, will ensure a happy team and a happy bottom line.