Don’t get me wrong, either – I’m not at all in favor of mandatory RTO policies, and that team that I loved at my old employer is now scattered to the winds as a result of layoffs and related attrition. The corporate arm of that company had nothing to do with how well my team meshed and worked together (though I will give lots of credit to my immediate boss there – I went to work at that company to work with her specifically, and she was one of the best managers one could ever ask for), and I suspect we’d have all agreed to be in-office together one or two days a week even without the RTO mandate. But it’s been hard to get integrated at this new place of work, and I was looking forward to this trip as a way to start connecting with coworkers, only to find out none of them actually turned up to the office anyway. Without the company making a specific effort to bridge the gap, I think that remote work can become really isolating and reinforce existing cliques and teams to the detriment of those who join up later on.
My team has stayed intact throughout covid and perpetually WFH but there’s no camaraderie any more and it feels like most of them really aren’t pulling their weight… (of course it’s hard to tell how busy they really are but I’m not dreaming it, there are some objective measures)
Don’t get me wrong, either – I’m not at all in favor of mandatory RTO policies, and that team that I loved at my old employer is now scattered to the winds as a result of layoffs and related attrition. The corporate arm of that company had nothing to do with how well my team meshed and worked together (though I will give lots of credit to my immediate boss there – I went to work at that company to work with her specifically, and she was one of the best managers one could ever ask for), and I suspect we’d have all agreed to be in-office together one or two days a week even without the RTO mandate. But it’s been hard to get integrated at this new place of work, and I was looking forward to this trip as a way to start connecting with coworkers, only to find out none of them actually turned up to the office anyway. Without the company making a specific effort to bridge the gap, I think that remote work can become really isolating and reinforce existing cliques and teams to the detriment of those who join up later on.
I really relate to this.
My team has stayed intact throughout covid and perpetually WFH but there’s no camaraderie any more and it feels like most of them really aren’t pulling their weight… (of course it’s hard to tell how busy they really are but I’m not dreaming it, there are some objective measures)