[GFischer]

I personally believe some sort of bonding period is great for remote people. I've worked in a kind of "worst of both worlds" setup where I went to an office 8-5 but I worked with a completely remote team (the office was basically a place for me to put on a headset and ignore everyone else).

But we met on a planned company trip (with the excuse of a Vegas trade show, we went and met one week early) and that helped immensely with bonding and team building.

If I manage a remote team, I'll push for a similar team bonding exercise whenever possible.

[sanderjd]

Yep, this sort of bonding is very important IMO. But it's also a giant trade-off. I can bond with people I work locally with at lunch, I have to leave my children for a few days to bond with people I work remotely with. It's a much heavier burden. I think it is often worth it! The town I live in doesn't have offices for every interesting company in the world, so I have to compromise on who I can work for if I'm not willing to work remote, which I currently feel is an even heavier burden. But if my perfect job also had a local office, I would be very pleased!