Virtual workers can go hours without seeing another person's face
Recently, I finished a large technology project with a virtual team of close to 100 people. As we were wrapping up the effort, one of the team members who was ending her professional career of over 40 years took the virtual floor.
She explained to us that in her career this was the only project she had worked on where most of the people on the team she had never met in person.
She continued "I could walk by many of you on the street and not even know it was you, and that is just sad."
I understood her sentiment. This new way many of us are working can be sad. Even if your interaction with someone is multiple days a week for months, your connection isn't as strong with someone if you have never been with them in-person.
The pandemic has made work less human for many people.
As another team member told me, "We know what one another does, but we don't know one another."
Not working in-person has removed many of the informal opportunities we had to reach out casually to each other, share ourselves and grow professionally and personally from those relationships.
Leaders,
How we work has changed. Yet what we need hasn't change that much. We need connection with other humans. This is where we develop essential in real life (IRL) business skills that are needed for the dynamic nature of work and are our general well-being.
Do what you can to foster relationships at work.
Stay in-tune and attuned to your team members. Have your people managers do weekly 30-minute one-on-one calls with each of their virtual employees in order to keep them connected. Coach your managers to be in-tune to what each of their employees is accountable for (their tactical accomplishments), and also attuned to what's going on with each of their employees, as people. Let the know you expect them to know how each of their employees was doing.
To get managers comfortable with this, Laura Seredinski, an HR leader, provided a form for managers to use with their one-on-one calls. It instructed them to dedicate 10 minutes of personal conversation.
"I think a lot of people really did use the form. It changed the connection (between manager and employee,)" Seredinski told me.
She also said that they had a few instances where loneliness and depression had set in with an employee and the employee op
ened up to the manager about what was happening. As a result, the manager was able to refer the struggling employee to the Employee Assistance Program.
Give those who started virtually extra support Be purposeful at finding ways to enhance virtual work relationships. Carve out time into your day to informally socialize with your virtual colleagues, especially with your new hires who have not met anyone from your company in person yet.
Find a way for face-to-face contact Find a way for each of your team members to get some in-person connection with others in your organization. I recommend a weekly in-person meeting. When not possible, find a way for that employee to have at least monthly in-person contact with another person from your organization.
While I have not met any of the team members from the large technology project in-person yet, I know I will someday. My passion for networking and connecting with people pre-dates the pandemic. I love getting together in-person over coffee, lunch, or a drink to catch-up with people. This will continue to be my habit. I look forward to when life brings me face-to-face with some of these team members. We will share smiles, as we reminisce about the good work we did together.
Key Points:
- Working fully virtual often erodes human connection — without in-person interaction, even long-term teammates can feel like strangers, undermining trust and belonging.
- Leaders who mandate regular one-on-one check-ins and create opportunities for occasional in-person or face-to-face contact help remote workers feel seen, supported, and part of a real team.