[leoedin]

I'm in the same boat, and it is definitely worse than starting a job in normal times.

I think it's an invisible problem because the decision makers and influential people in the organisation were mostly around before lockdown, so they already know everyone - they know who to ask when they have a problem, they have a feeling for who is friendly, who can be helpful etc. So to most of the staff that aspect just doesn't cross their radar.

It's very easy for remote work to feel much more contractual - you do the work needed for your team and deliver it. You lose the wider context - which I think makes it very hard for the wider team to change direction or have new ideas. The fallout of that inflexibility is intangible and immeasurable, but I bet it will come eventually.

An organisation has to both be productive on a daily basis and choose correctly what to work on. If you don't do both, you fail. Working remotely broadly improves the first, but I think without really good systems in place it completely throws off the second one.

[waheoo]

You have to create a culture of safety to enable people to ask questions. And if you get annoyed by the repeating questions you need to back that up with extremely accessible documentation around culture and expectations.