[higginsc]

I'm surprised and skeptical about some of this. In particular:

  We also measured networks across more than 90,000 Microsoft employees in the United States. Frankly, we expected to see them shrink significantly, given the rapid shifts in environment, daytime rhythms, and personal responsibilities. Instead, we discovered that most employees maintained their existing connections. Even more encouraging, most people’s network size increased. We had assumed that in a time of crisis, employees might strengthen networks within their own work groups in an insular way. In fact, we saw network growth not only within existing work groups but also across different groups, indicating that to adapt and thrive teams sought to build bridges.

This does not square with my lived experience. Close connections at work have stayed relatively strong, perhaps even strengthening as we shore them up with recurring 1:1s and social team meetings. Peripheral connections have gone down the toilet. Team and role homophily run rampant.

I wonder what evidence they actually used to back up this statement. I suspect the effect is actually in the opposite (and more intuitive) direction, and that their finding is actually a result of the McNamara fallacy.

[freeone3000]

"Network" is measured by Outlook emails, Yammer posts, and Teams conversations and meetings. I'm willing to wager money most peoples' network metrics increased simply because offline conversations never happened, and they moved to online conversations where necessary.

[qeternity]

Not only this: online, the cost of “growing” your network by adding more recipients is (nearly) free which is very much at odds with offline growth. So my guess is the quality of weaker connections actually diminished even if the number of connections increased.

[JumpCrisscross]

> because offline conversations never happened, and they moved to online conversations where necessary

Not to mention throwing everyone who might need to know about something on a thread because you don’t know who should be. This would be measured as a network increase. But it actually represents distancing.

[disposedtrolley]

> Close connections at work have stayed relatively strong, perhaps even strengthening as we shore them up with recurring 1:1s and social team meetings. Peripheral connections have gone down the toilet. Team and role homophily run rampant.

This absolutely mirrors my experience. Casual conversations with people outside of my team and friends, which would've happened by just being in close proximity to them have disappeared.

While I believe we're still working very well as a team, opportunities to form connections outside of our domain have dwindled. We used to have this Slack app called Donut [1] which periodically matches colleagues together for a 1:1, but these days people are sick of Zoom meetings so you really do need a sound excuse to set one up. In-person 1:1s were a chance to escape the office for some coffee and a snack; Zoom meetings are much less tantalising.

[1] https://www.donut.com/

[vyrotek]

I think more video conferencing apps needs to have simple games available like https://team.video does. Basically there's a new Scrabble game available for each meeting which you can play whenever. We have found ourselves using it as a nice social moment before and after meetings even if it's just for a minute.

[disposedtrolley]

Yes that would be awesome! We try and play games during our team happy hours, but the friction of finding a site, getting everybody to sign up, and dealing with "this doesn't work on my machine" issues is often off-putting. Having a collection of games we can start instantly mitigates many of these issues.

[api]

I'm wondering if remote-first and work from home will end up being reverse-ageist. Developers and others with deep existing networks and a lot of experience may do just fine or even thrive, while the young may struggle to develop those networks in the first place.

[disposedtrolley]

I think there's still plenty of opportunity to develop a professional network through structured events like 1:1s and mentoring sessions, but you definitely need to be intentional with this since you can't just strike up a conversation in the hallways anymore.

Where juniors will struggle with is not being able to swivel their chair and ask someone next to them for help. I've witnessed situations where people hold back "stupid" questions which end up blocking their work because the effort of crafting a Slack message or asking to set up a Zoom was too high. For anyone with juniors on their team, make sure to check up on them every now and then!

[llarsson]

That the poor souls were so bored and deep in procrastination that they actually logged on to and used the corporate Yammer instance and "liked" perhaps five messages on there before being adequately underwhelmed to return to their respective work tasks, I am willing to bet.

Am I sarcastic? Maybe, maybe not.

[iso1631]

five messages on yammer? That's a lot for a busy year in our corporation.

[8ytecoder]

People I don’t have to talk to on a regular basis at work feel really distant now. Lunch used to be a great time to randomly hit up coworkers to talk and share ideas. That network has completely dissolved now.

[sharken]

You’re not the only one, coworkers that i only see online feels as distant as most Facebook contacts.

Ultimately this leads to less enjoyable work experience and thus more likely that workers switch jobs earlier than before.

[LordFast]

I have witnessed that the opposite also holds true: less enjoyable coworkers are now less irritating simply because of the added distance and buffer room, making them easier to tolerate* than when having to deal with in person on a daily basis. *quality of work notwithstanding

[9nGQluzmnq3M]

But now imagine starting a new job and not being able to build that distant network at all. I have colleagues who joined half a year ago but have never seen a coworker outside scheduled videoconferences.

[cs02rm0]

Not Microsoft, but my network's expanded significantly including to associates at Microsoft.

Mostly helped by the people I'd normally struggle to contact because they hide away in different buildings, behind different physical and digital security rules, now being much more available for video calls. Appreciate your mileage may vary but it does square with my lived experience.

I've lost some connections with people I only spoke to because we were physically situated together, but that's way outnumbered for me by those I now find more accessible.

[Lammy]

I would be particularly interested to hear from people hired during the lockdown who didn't have existing connections at all.

[igotsideas]

This isn’t something I haven’t thought of. I’m hoping teams have prepared for this.

[dade_]

My network has expanded, but it was deliberate on my part. Acquaintances that I meant to talk to more often, especially geographically distant are now much easier to make regular contact. Before, conflicts with travel, out of the office meetings, at workshops made it very difficult to line up calendars. These days, there is a good likelihood that a 30 minute meeting will work.

It’s been much easier to avoid the time burners that pounce on me at the office. It’s been wonderful missing out on their complaining and uninvited ‘thought leadership’. They can post it to Yammer and LinkedIn.

[m463]

> especially geographically distant are now much easier to make regular contact.

I have a few friends/coworkers who became remote over the years. Our contacts had been more infrequent, but still there.

Now post covid I not only contact them, but ask for "remote work advice" since they're experienced pros.

[m0xte]

If it’s the same analysts who do their telemetry analysis then you’re probably right.

[hrktb]

It depends how you built that network.

If it’s mostly the people You met at smoke/coffee breaks or going to lunch with you that network won’t grow much remotely, stagnate at best.

If it’s mostly people directly working with you, having everyone on the same playing field (nobody is physically closer to your desk, or to your office) can help that network to expand.

[cm2187]

Perhaps they measured it as emails/chat network patterns, but the increase could easily be explained by the fact that you cannot just walk up to someone's desk anymore.

I agree, everything else in the article pretty much matches my own experience except that.

Also understanding what is going on outside of your immediate duties, which is based on informal or overheard conversations, has disapeared completely (not the least because no one will put a rumor or an overheard conversation in writing in a chat room), and it has a nasty effect of making people feeling isolated.

[blitmap]

Org charts are pretty common in my workplace.

I wonder what facilities are available to Microsoft employees to discover people outside their teams when seeking assistance or niche experience.

You can see a “who reports to who” in Outlook on our phones when searching peoples names but I don’t think that’s how these peripheral connections are being made.

[13of40]

"Blame" helps, too. All the bigger projects are in Visual Studio Online, so if you wanted to know, for instance, the latest contributors to WMI, it's just a few clicks away.

[gregd]

I think that the increase they're talking about probably came about because people where highly stressed out and worried about Covid-19. A certain degree of comfort comes from reading about shared experiences during this stressful time on a company-wide Yammer feed.

[danielscrubs]

Before corona I’d ask a colleague next to me for help first even via Skype, now I just go straight to the one likely responsible because I won’t get the social component so I no longer care to prioritize the contact of my team-mates.

[crb002]

There might have been noise elimination. Less useless meetings. Quality != quantity.

[cm2187]

Plus on a 30min, you loose at least 5 or 10 in people struggling to join, asking to repeat because of a bad connection or because some baby is crying.

And I think like most people, my attention is reduced on a call vs physical meeting unless it is a meeting I particularly care about.