How to build team connection when working completely remotely
Building interpersonal connection is much harder when teammates have never met in person and have no chance of coming into a physical office. This lack of face time makes it very difficult to feel genuinely connected to colleagues, leaving remote teams struggling to maintain the same level of cohesion as in-person groups.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Planning occasional on-site all-hands meetings
- 2Making casual phone calls to engineers to chat
- 3Sharing information in ways that respect time zones
- 4Setting up short weekly async updates
- 5Creating a team values statement collaboratively
In their words
Unedited, most upvoted first, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Speaking personally, it's very difficult to feel connected to someone you've never met in person.”source ↗
“I find that seeking the same level of interpersonal connection for remote teams is harder, (my team is fully remote not a chance of coming to the office for us).”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 4How to manage remote IT infrastructure without a dedicated team
- 23How to deal with uncooperative coworkers who don't do their work
- 8Why do coworkers always bypass their supervisors to come straight to me?
- 2Why does team documentation always go out of date?
- 3How to handle tension and disagreements during group travel
- 2Why is keeping a professional network CRM updated so tedious?