In great cultures, there is a sense of camaraderie and belonging. People like to be around others. There is fun. You can grab a coffee, go for lunch together, and talk about life.

Humans are social animals, and we need physical contact with other human beings to stay mentally healthy.

The biggest challenge with a long-term hybrid workplace is, without a doubt, the potential of cutting the ties between employees.

1. It is harder to build relationships

The human brain unconsciously categorizes people into friends and potential foes, into in-group and out-group. It then processes the information from the in-group much better, with more richness and fewer mental hurdles. It is much more skeptical when interacting with those from the out-group, and the collaboration is not that smooth. That is the mechanism at play when you can feel a difference in the experience of having a video call with a colleague you know and have worked with for years and a complete stranger. One will be smooth and fun, and the other will be tiring and less productive. Face-to-face interaction is the easiest way to build a relationship and categorize someone as belonging to the in-group.

“The brain needs to experience the other person as an actual human, not a virtual concept on a screen.”

If all you have is the screen, try to get to know them as much as possible, not just as colleagues but also as human beings. Learn about their lives outside of work, their hobbies, goals, and wishes. Let them share the family pictures or invite their dog to the video call. Your brain will thank you.

Even the world of open-source development that has been driven by volunteers sharing common passion and working from all corners of the world shows that members see regular real-life meetings as helpful for building strong relationships. Face-to-face meetings helped facilitate coordination on the project. They gave a more personal feel to the names they saw on mailing lists. One leader even quipped, “Meetings in real life … are very important. Future interactions are just different once you have gotten drunk with someone.”

2. Working from home is too convenient

As Jon Levy notes, many people like working from home because it is convenient. No need to commute. However, maybe it is too convenient. No commute, no walking between meetings, no chit-chat with colleagues around the water cooler or grabbing a coffee. Essentially, there are no breaks. You may think you are more efficient without all these things, but you are not. There is no time to let your mind wander, rethink what you are doing, or process what is happening. When you work from home, make sure you build these small breaks into your day and use them to think or chit-chat with colleagues, even remotely.

3. It is more difficult to feel that we belong

Our body is wired to need togetherness. When you are around other people and have physical contact, your hormone oxytocin levels increase, leading to a bigger feeling of belonging and satisfaction with life. There is a clear correlation between social relationships and health and longevity.

“Going to the office is not only about work. It never was. It is about belonging.”

Going to the office is not only about work. It never was. It is about building relationships, socializing, learning, helping each other, innovation, creativity, and maintaining organizational culture. It is about belonging. Shifting to a completely work-from-home regime can negatively impact all these dimensions.

Anne-Laure Fayard, John Weeks, and Mahwesh Khan note that studies showed that frequent face-to-face interactions lead to commitment, support, and cooperation between people and teams. The office is essentially a social and cultural place. Getting rid of it completely may not be the best idea.

4. There is no room for emotional connections

The 2020 pandemic showed us that existing relationships in workplace settings could thrive even when people meet only virtually. However, for many people, there is such a concept as too much of a good thing. Working from home all the time and meeting others only virtually leads to less bonding and, ultimately, a feeling of loneliness. Not to mention that if the relationships were built only virtually, they would never be as strong. Being physically in the same place helps people to read others’ body language signals better. They can see their moods and observe their personalities for extended periods. There are chance encounters, meaningless chit-chats, and small ways in which people acknowledge each other. It all leads to stronger relationships.

“Working from home all the time and meeting others only virtually leads to less bonding and ultimately a feeling of loneliness.”

Remote interaction is often focused purely on work and tasks that need to be done. Not much room for emotional connections. Remote work also leads to a radical increase in short meetings to solve minor tasks since people can’t just drop in on someone else for quick help. A review of data by Microsoft showed that there was a 22% increase in short, 30-minute or fewer meetings. These shorter meetings are also driven by the need for managers to schedule more frequent one-on-one check-ins and social gatherings to keep the team spirits up. Lots of the collaboration and asking questions have also shifted from voice and video to instant messaging. Microsoft saw a 72% increase in the volume of instant messages sent by people working from home.

5. There is a lack of unplanned interactions

Unplanned interactions and chance encounters are fundamental to building wider networks of connections. While virtual teams may lead to more communication with close collaborators and team members, they lead to less interaction with other colleagues. Less interaction then leads to less trust and can stifle innovation and collaboration when needed.

“Virtual teams lead to less interaction with colleagues outside of the immediate team. Less interaction then leads to less trust.”

Researchers Caroline A. Bartel, Amy Wrzesniewski, and Batia M. Wiesenfeld found that perceived respect is negatively associated with the degree of physical isolation, and respect mediates the relationship between physical isolation and organizational identification. This applies to both new and tenured employees. This lack of interactions with people outside of the direct sphere of influence leads to fewer so-called weak ties. These are the acquaintances you may have met occasionally and don’t really know. However, you can still reach out to them and ask for help or invite them to a virtual team and relatively quickly strengthen the bond.

“Unstructured collaboration leads to creativity and innovation.”

Unstructured collaboration leads to creativity and innovation. And unstructured collaboration requires face-to-face contact. Anyone who has worked in a bigger company knows that it is difficult to do even if the team is spread across two floors of the same building, not to mention a remote location. This also means that even systems like alternating groups of people coming to the office on different days don’t help. It may help in times of the pandemic with social distancing, but it doesn’t help with collaboration and relationship building if people don’t meet anyway.

What to do about it?

To build a culture where people care about each other and go above their duties to help others, you need to allow everyone to know each other as human beings. That means people need to talk about other things than work.

“Work is the shared context the whole team has in common, but it doesn’t tell us anything about who the people are and what they care about.”

When people get to the office, they need to feel empowered to spend enough time socializing. They shouldn’t just hunker down and use all their time in the office locked in a room or in virtual meetings.

Socializing and relationship building are essential and should be seen as part of the job. This applies especially to managers and leaders who should go out of their way to make themselves available for chance encounters and chats.

Rituals that offer interaction and informal learning opportunities are a must. They foster sharing stories, promote cultural values, and allow people to know what’s going on in the projects and the lives of their colleagues.

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What is your take on the topic? How important is the social aspect of work for you? Are you able to build strong bonds with your colleagues when working from home? What is the best way to get to know your co-workers in the hybrid workplace?

Photo: AdrienBe / Pixabay.com