[cassonmars]

The loss of cognitive overhead of dealing with a physical workspace with distractions abound has to be countered with a new cognitive overhead – putting initiative forward in reaching out to coworkers, setting up regular 1:1s to just chat. While the conversations may initially feel forced (because they are indeed artificial), once camaraderie is built, it feels as natural as an office chat.

[syed_h5]

Man, this might be my most favorite comment so far as I am reading through everything.

I love the way you put it. We are trying to do exactly that, build camaraderie from day 1 without the leg work. If I join a new team, instantly knowing who else is a Cricket fan is a sure fire way for me to get close to them and fit into the team faster.

Could you please check out www.getparallel.io ? I would love to get your thoughts on it.

[closeparen]

Video calls are miserable already, and there are way too many hours of them just to get through necessary work business. Video calls to just chat are a special hell.

[sedeki]

Setting up regular 1:1s just to chat sounds good. Though if I were new at a company, I'd feel forced to have a work-related/productive reasons to schedule these meetings...

What do you title these 1:1s so that your coworkers will accept them, and so that your manager won't lift and eyebrow?

[kradeelav]

Not the person you're replying to, but as a manager: a manager who dislikes employees reaching out for 1:1's with other coworkers for any reason is a bad one, imo. I encourage my folks to be proactive in learning from other teams and to be adults who don't need hand-holding. As long as they hold up their bargain of a reasonable amount of work done in a time frame, what they do with their time isn't my business.

(caveat that it's for normal water cooler talk and not a top-of-the-iceberg issue of a very big iceberg of issues.)

[syed_h5]

I would love to get a manager's POV on what we are doing. Because I agree with you. A manager is a crucial part in culture.

Could you please check out www.getparallel.io ? I would love to get your thoughts on it.

We completely take out the leg work initially needed to build and establish relationships in a work env. We are here to make WFH better. Some of the best work is done when people bond over things that aren't even work.

[cassonmars]

Literally just "Name/Name 1:1" so it's indistinguishable from other 1:1s, but if you're in a remote org and they aren't okay with and encouraging these kinds of recurring meetings, it's probably a toxic environment. They don't dominate a calendar, maybe a grand total of 2.5 hrs a week at most.

[molsongolden]

Coffee/tea/donut chats. There are chat apps like Donut but you can also set these up manually. Everybody who is interested joins a chat channel then an admin generates random pairings each week.

[throwawaysleep]

I like that I can just opt out of really knowing my co-workers remotely. No need to ever chat.