[DevKoala]

As a team lead in a group distributed team, we make sure we include everybody regardless of physical location. You Zoom with people enough, and over time you realize there is nothing extra than the office provided except easy distractions.

[ghaff]

I'm rarely on a call of any size where everyone would normally be in the same office or often even in the same country. In some ways, I actually prefer the situation where everyone is on their own video chat rather than having a mix of a couple conference rooms and everyone else by themselves.

A couple teams I know even have a standing rule about everyone calling in individually on team calls even if a few people are in the same office.

I think a lot of people come at this from the perspective of small companies where everyone is co-located. But the reality at large companies if people are pretty scattered around even if they're not working from home.

[doopy-loopy2]

I don't know how anyone can say that video calls and face-to-face time are equivalent with a straight face.

Of course, this is my opinion, but it seems pretty obvious that in-person interaction is what builds relationships.

[DevKoala]

Because we have statistics to prove it. The productivity of our whole eng organization has been great while being 100% remote. As a caveat to this, before the pandemic only half of us went to the office. I believe that helped us be prepared.

Also, haven’t you ever made friends online? Building relationships online is nothing new. In fact, many of the in person relationship building activities excluded different individuals. For example, going out for drinks with the team was never my idea of having fun. I am glad I don’t have to attend those anymore.

[doopy-loopy2]

lol, care to share what kind of statistics you are looking at?