Last week I hosted a free event called The Case for Community: The ROI of IRL Connection as a preview of a new keynote + workshop I’m offering.
The chat was so full of comments and questions I couldn’t get to them all, so I wanted to follow up.
Here are just a few:
– “People often commute into the office just to hole up in an enclosed room all day.”
– “Company is fully remote and doesn’t want to invest in offsite, in person gatherings”
– “Challenge is when remote workers don’t engage in any large scale team-building projects IRL. They often opt out of everything.”
– “What suggestions do you have for building community among distributed teams, which is increasingly the norm today?”
– “What recommendations do you have to find that spot between tech and connect in a remote and global organisation? We only connect virtually, and we have people all around the world, which brings some challenges when scheduling time together due to time zone differences.”
Here’s the thing. This stuff is HARD. In fact, I often say the human stuff is the hardest stuff.
And navigating the ongoing, post-pandemic Office vs. Hybrid vs. Remote battle is really hard!
I get it.
And while the “answer” is definitely not a one-size-fits-all, there are three important things to remember when creating community at work.
- Be intentional: When you bring people together in-person, respect their time. Make sure you’ve designed a day in the office that’s actually worth the commute. Intentional bonus: Have someone “own” the IRL connection process, like a “connection curator.”
 - The ROI of IRL: There’s a real business case to be made for getting together in person, even (especially!) if your organization is remote or hybrid. If you’re a leader, you must prioritize and invest in gatherings, whether that’s three times a week, three times a month, or three times a year.
 - Find the Sweet Spot: The tech tools that we’ve been able to harness over the last decade or so have been a remarkable way to communicate and get work done. So yes, we must leverage all that’s great about the technology we have at our disposal. But we must also understand its limitations and put it “in its place” (aka, away). Make time for face-to-face connection—there really is no replacement for it.
Of course you know how important it is to craft meaningful community at work, but in the midst of everything else you have going on, it’s easy to get overwhelmed.
That’s where I come in. Whether you’re looking for a company-wide keynote or a workshop for managers, I’m here to help you get the ROI out of your IRL meetings.
Let’s turn your company into a place that’s good for people AND great for business.
5/14/24
