Social isolation is a real danger these days, and it's important we recognise and counterbalance it.
On the other hand we need to recognise that 1) relationships have changed a lot in the age of smart phones and social media, and the reward you get from hanging out with people now is very different than the one our parents experienced 2) we all need more recovery time considering life today is a never-ending bombardment of attention-seeking digital and sensory input and 3) some people (trauma survivors, neurodivergent folks etc.) actually need me-time more than others and we need to enable them to take it when they need it.
Firstly, it seems a lot of people assume that there is no middle way between "in-person-equals-cultivating-contacts-and-socialising" and "remote-equals-isolation-and-no-contacts-at-all". I worked remotely for 25 years as a freelancer then another two years during lockdown, and I would venture one of my strengths is the network I built up, exclusively without in-person contacts (due to geographic distance).
We are also a distributed team and it's not possible to get the whole team together in person more than once a year. Nevertheless, we are a very strong and close team and, even after lockdown, we are permanently in touch every working day through daily standups, Teams chats and calls, and we make a point of scheduling regular coffee calls just to chew the bacon. Chats also have the merit of being able to ask questions of colleagues without interrupting them and breaking their train of thought when they're in the zone, allowing them to respond when it's convenient. In our field, this is very important for productivity.
Our company's RTO policy has caused enormous grief over 2-3 years with moving goalposts, and even a minor burnout due to travel distance. Moreover, I just don't understand any business logic in insisting that it is "more productive" for everyone to spend 60% of their working hours networking and in meetings, and only 40% doing actual work (unless talking to people is their actual work).
Secondly, as Adina below points out, insistence on in-person presence - especially in hot-desking, open-plan offices - prioritises the needs of extroverts and discriminates against more introverted people, and certainly against those whose work is "head work", i.e. those who need peace and quiet to concentrate on highly complex, challenging work. And there are sectors of key importance to business success that are largely populated with introverts.
(I should add, I'm a real convert to regular in-person contact, but it should be proportionate to personalities and type of work. It should also be left to the judgement of each team to decide how they are most productive, not imposed from on high by people who have no understanding of the work their staff actually do and don't trust them to do it unsupervised (projection?). )
I think many of us are still reeling from the pandemic (no matter what age) and enforced isolation.
I was at an in-person work event on Tuesday and people stayed chatting way beyond 'kicking-out' time – 5 years on from lockdown, it still felt novel to stand and chat with like-minded people.
Social isolation is a real danger these days, and it's important we recognise and counterbalance it.
On the other hand we need to recognise that 1) relationships have changed a lot in the age of smart phones and social media, and the reward you get from hanging out with people now is very different than the one our parents experienced 2) we all need more recovery time considering life today is a never-ending bombardment of attention-seeking digital and sensory input and 3) some people (trauma survivors, neurodivergent folks etc.) actually need me-time more than others and we need to enable them to take it when they need it.
Firstly, it seems a lot of people assume that there is no middle way between "in-person-equals-cultivating-contacts-and-socialising" and "remote-equals-isolation-and-no-contacts-at-all". I worked remotely for 25 years as a freelancer then another two years during lockdown, and I would venture one of my strengths is the network I built up, exclusively without in-person contacts (due to geographic distance).
We are also a distributed team and it's not possible to get the whole team together in person more than once a year. Nevertheless, we are a very strong and close team and, even after lockdown, we are permanently in touch every working day through daily standups, Teams chats and calls, and we make a point of scheduling regular coffee calls just to chew the bacon. Chats also have the merit of being able to ask questions of colleagues without interrupting them and breaking their train of thought when they're in the zone, allowing them to respond when it's convenient. In our field, this is very important for productivity.
Our company's RTO policy has caused enormous grief over 2-3 years with moving goalposts, and even a minor burnout due to travel distance. Moreover, I just don't understand any business logic in insisting that it is "more productive" for everyone to spend 60% of their working hours networking and in meetings, and only 40% doing actual work (unless talking to people is their actual work).
Secondly, as Adina below points out, insistence on in-person presence - especially in hot-desking, open-plan offices - prioritises the needs of extroverts and discriminates against more introverted people, and certainly against those whose work is "head work", i.e. those who need peace and quiet to concentrate on highly complex, challenging work. And there are sectors of key importance to business success that are largely populated with introverts.
(I should add, I'm a real convert to regular in-person contact, but it should be proportionate to personalities and type of work. It should also be left to the judgement of each team to decide how they are most productive, not imposed from on high by people who have no understanding of the work their staff actually do and don't trust them to do it unsupervised (projection?). )
I think many of us are still reeling from the pandemic (no matter what age) and enforced isolation.
I was at an in-person work event on Tuesday and people stayed chatting way beyond 'kicking-out' time – 5 years on from lockdown, it still felt novel to stand and chat with like-minded people.