Real Ways To Connect Remote Teams

As workplaces increasingly embrace the telecommuting model, leaders can take several steps to bridge cultural and interpersonal gaps.

- Katherine Dugan And Varun Bhatnagar

As two longtime business consultants, we make a point of keeping in touch with former colleagues. When we had lunch recently with one who had left consulting to join a startup, we were eager to hear how he was faring. Admittedly, we were even a little jealous of what sounded like an interesting, high-energy venture. But once we started asking questions to get a glimpse of what life was like on the startup side, we could see that after just two months in the new job, he was miserable.

And not because he didn’t like his boss or colleagues or the work that he was doing. The problem was that he was a 100 percent virtual worker for the first time in his career. In a way that he hadn’t predicted, he missed the sporadic moments of connection that happen in the hallway or cafeteria. He missed casual human interaction and the accompanying sense of belonging. And he missed the surge of energy that many of us feel when we work in an office with our colleagues.

“Are you on a lot of conference calls?” we probed, searching for a solution. The answer was yes, he was connecting with colleagues formally throughout the day, but there was very little unstructured “social” time. And when someone did create space for socializing, it often fell flat because it seemed forced and unnatural. In short, our former colleague didn’t feel like a member of a real team.