Inherited team that never meets in person through choice

[Daisythedonkey]

Hope someone can help. Recently been promoted to manage the team I have worked in for 4 years. I’ve worked my way up and did a large part of my boss’s job anyway so no problem being the boss and running the department so to speak.

However, boss was quite slack when it came to HR and pandered to the team (IMO). There is nothing medical or other personal issues that have led to the set up now (seen files etc.). Essentially I have a team member who lives 200 miles away who was employed during the pandemic and another who comes into the office one day a week, if that. A third who lives locally and can be in the office whenever. Prepandemic, everyone was in the office all the time and, if I’m honest, things were a lot smoother. There is zero team spirit now and very little informal communication. Office based team member misses sense of community and friendship, understandably really. It’s tedious rocking up to speak to no one all day!

I want to make everyone attend the office at least two set days/week. I don’t think this is too much to ask. Any advice/hints/tips?

Are you serious? You want someone who lives 200 miles away, to now travel in 2 days a week?

Why do you feel the office based staff wants, are more important than the others wants?

I am a senior manager and have people working on all sorts of set ups. I can’t imagine telling one ‘you need to come because the office based team member feels sad’

if communication is poor, improve it.

Do you personally have to attend the office either way, regardless of everyone else?

I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect someone to travel 200 miles into the office when the job was given to them as remote working and otherwise do the job well.

I’m not sure you’ll be particularly well liked by your team if you enforce it, but i’m sure you’re within your right to make the change.

I don’t feel the office based team member’s feelings really come in to it - that shouldn’t be the reason for the change.

It very much depends what their contracts say about working location, working pattern and office-based hours. You need to speak to HR before insisting on any significant changes. I'd also give them 2-4 weeks notice of the changes so they can arrange childcare etc

My advice is to think really carefully about this. Once a working pattern has been in place for 2 years it is a flexible working arrangement and not easy to undo. Also I would definitely consult with your team. If you want to foster better team spirit why not ask them how they think it could best be achieved. I think in your shoes I'd be careful about pissing everyone off at the start.

I think you're being very unreasonable. How do you expect someone working 200 miles away to get to the office?

Remote teams can work very well together - there's a wealth of information online that can help you manage a remote team.

If you insist on this, prepare yourself for some serious resentment and the potential for long term stress related sickness.

Maybe look at how to make a new way work rather than going back to the old way.

Yes, there are some drawbacks to remote work but it’s how things are going to be and we need to look at how people communicate virtually and collaborate better rather than dragging everyone back into the office and making them sit in traffic for the sake of some informal chit chat.

So you have 3 team members, one is in all the time and is lonely, one pops in a once a week and you would like to make it twice, and the third lives 200 miles away? And they are all doing their jobs and performing?

YADBU to expect the 200 mile away one to come in!

The office based one shouldn't get to make the other two unhappy just so she has someone to talk to...can she move seats and sit near a different team for the social aspect?

Yeah, you’re off your tree if you think that will fly and quite rightly too.

i don’t think there is any harm in trialling like a quarterly team day/s in the office if it works for people - it would be able to be meaningful. Our work does this, and tbe focus is more on team building and welfare - which helps build better remote relationships.

the thing is, it doesn’t work for you to have folks wfh, it clearly works for other people. I would bet money on if you try to force two days a week, you’ll look the fool having to back down when it blows up in your face.

I spent the best part of the last two decades working in a team split across countries. It's brilliant when we could meet, but travel budgets rarely allowed. Being face-to-face is good, but not essential, especially now when there are so many options for videoconferencing and the like.

What do their contracts say? If someone is employed on a home-working contract, you can't make them come into the office. We would ask if there were important overseas visitors or something, but then they'd be entitled to claim travel expenses for the journey (unlike those of us on hybrid or office-based contracts.) So you may slso have financial implications.

I think a monthly team meeting would be reasonable

Make it away from the office, to help break some of the territorial perceptions.

You'll obviously be paying mileage to all the team members, make it a team day with lunch.

But have objectives and an agenda. Don't just spend the day together because 'it'd be nice'.

How many days a week are you in?

On what basis was the 200 miles away person employed? Fully remote role or hybrid? That's going to be your obstacle.

We work remotely in our team of 5. We meet up quarterly and have an overnight stay. Allows time for work and socialising. We often combine it with a conference or visiting one of our projects. This is meant we don't need to have an office so the cost save there easily cover the travel costs.

All depends on the new remote worker's contract. If it says they are permanently home based then you are being unreasonable plus should be paying for travel on occasions they need to come in.

Btw, I think you have a point, dp brought his U.K. based team all back in after Easter 2021, remote working stifled the team spirit basically, he has 3 remote workers overseas who fly in 4 times a year at company expense including overnight hotel, and we always go out for a meal/similar with them when they are in town to include them

Office based team member misses sense of community and friendship
But is the team all working well? If everyone’s achieving then I wouldn’t put one person’s desire for friendship above that. What will they gain in terms of the actual work by coming into the office that can’t be achieved from wfh?

Maybe you need to tweak things but no, I wouldn’t be requesting 2 days in the office for one person’s benefit over the whole team.

Why do you want to call everyone back to the office? Is there a work function for it? Or just so the one member has someone to talk to? How about quarterly live meeting and if you're concerned with team spirit have a weekly afternoon tea online (during work hours) with thw whole team. Also check the contract of the remote employee. Also think carefully how in demand your industry is cause making people come in for no reason is gonna lead them to look for alternative work if possible.

Go and do your research on post-covid hybrid working. All the research is saying that planned, purposeful days together are effective for community and team cohesion. Random 2-3 days a week for no real reason doesn't really help that much.
As manager you have to learn how to foster community as well as collaboration, remotely. And then every, say, quarter bring the team together for a strategic/planned day with purpose.

Is 'the one team member in the office is lonely' your main reason for this? I would prepare yourself to have to recruit new team members.

Is the team working well together professionally? Hitting targets, doing high-quality work?

That matters more than one person wanting "friendship" from their colleagues. Maybe the others love the current set-up, and if you try to impose change, you're going to have a recruitment nightmare on your hands.

If employee who works from home has home as their place of work on their contract then the company will have to cough up their travel expenses to get to the office twice a week, and potentially a hotel fee too at that distance so hopefully you’ve considered that aspect? Although realistically I don’t think you have much of a leg to stand on telling someone 200 miles away who’s worked from home for a couple of years that they now need to be in the office twice a week.

What you need to do is to look at the contract of the person who lives 200 miles away and under what agreement this was approved. Then decide what you can do in terms of that.

Maybe do a quarterly workshop day so you can all meet. Do you not hold Teams meetings? What industry do you work in, I can’t see how meeting in person to discuss something is different to doing it on Teams, it also then only takes up an hour or two rather than all day.

What do you mean by smoother? Because the fact that things aren’t going well now sounds more like you haven’t examined your works processes and updated them to working hybrid.

Do you have teams channels or slack where people post questions? Do you have a wiki where someone has documented your workflows. Have you had discussions about how to use teams (if people just send the message “hi” without further context they should NOT expect a reply).

My team is remote. Half in London and the others based in different offices some 200 miles away. That said they wfh 4/5 days. The system works, but we do try and meet once a month in London. I think that’s really important for team spirit. I visited one regional office recently and met with new team member and had lunch. Introduced them to people in the office.

I wouldn’t change the system OP, but starting regular meet ups seems sensible.

I think it would be the wrong approach to try to solve the issue of poor team spirit and morale with forcing people who are clearly comfortable WFH and some who lives a huge distance away travels into the office.

I work remotely and while I am based close to my local office, the vast majority of my team work in another country and the people who are in the same country live dotted around it quite far. We still have great communication, formally and informally.

I would focus on the communication issue without making the assumption that regular face to face standard working in the office will solve it.