New employee (Gen Z} doesn’t want to meet in person

[outofofficeon]

I took on a graduate for a new position, she’d been job hunting for a few years, I felt good about giving her a hand up into a great career.
She lives about an hour away so works remotely. She bright and polite and reliable and a good member of the team.

The problem I have is that she doesn’t want to visit the office in person or meet her colleagues in person, I offered to put her up in a nice hotel and pay travel costs so that she could spend a few days with us in person. She declined. My latest issue is that she doesn’t put her camera on when we are communicating at work as part of daily work or chats. I understand she might not be very confident but I think that you have to get out of the house / your comfort zone if you want a career.

im not sure what to do- any advice oh wise ladies.

Tell her directly the expectation is camera on.

As the lack of connection /relationship building and comms is impacting the business (i take it to mean she isnt strong in role / you wouldnt rehire her) if you wouldn't rehire her then very honestly... I'd get her on a pip and get her out before the 2 year mark.

If she is in probation id make it clear what the expactations are. Camera on and she needs to come in ocassionally and if she isnt up for that the job isn’t for her. Fail her probation.

Also sort out your wording in future contracts and be clear on what remote means with future employees.

You’re the boss. Just tell the whole team on your next call that you’ve decided that going forward you want cameras on for your team meetings. That’s not a contractual change and she just needs to be told.
in regards to coming into the office, you need to establish why she can’t / won’t and try and work through that with her. What’s her productivity like? Is she still on probation?

This is so tricky if she's bright and doing good work. I completely agree with you that f2f is needed to truly immersive yourself, get to know a team and develop personally and professionally. Sadly it's easy to hide yourself away and the reality is it can so easily make mental health even worse in my opinion. In your own isolating bubble. But pushing yourself outside of that is hard, but the end result is growth. Remote works means that you don't have to work through those hard bits. I suspect you see potential in her to grow, and sadly, she might not due to this. And may not want to. I think that just feels counter-intuitive to a lot of us but that's why there's some super bright, very capable people who are essentially in admin/data jobs. They may choose not to move on from that.

She lives an hour away? I used to commute upwards of an hour each way every single day. As do millions of people. Offering a hotel for that was extremely generous and it’s appalling that she’s refused.

She sounds like a stampy foot brat. I could never have imagined talking to my employer like that as a graduate. I went where they told me to!

Agree with cameras on. We are an ‘in office’ workplace aside from Covid lockdown but we still have a lot of remote meetings and the only time it’s acceptable to have camera off is in a meeting or webinar when you’re not expected to contribute. I’m a millennial but the idea of attending a collaborative meeting with my camera off is breathtakingly rude. Background filters are fine, but being visually present is a dealbreaker. With regards physical presence in the office that will depend on her contract and unfortunately I think you’re scuppered if it doesn’t demand it.

Does she really have a fully remote contract that doesn’t even have a sentence along the lines of “may occasionally be required to travel to company sites”?

Every contract I’ve ever had has had that line, generally with “other company sites” as the contract hasn’t been fully remote but has specified a base office. Always with the scope for being required to visit another office for a meeting or whatever.

I’d get that contract changed for the next new hire if I could. Even if you’re happy with fully remote (which I support!) you want the flexibility.

They don’t meet your unspoken expectations, act as you would, but you think that’s their fault (with a nice dig at GenZ just in case we didn’t all get the hint)?

They were hired for a remote position but you are annoyed they aren’t jumping at the chance to come in to the office. This whole “camera on” nonsense winds me up too. I prefer to have mine on if I’m leading a meeting or in a small meeting but equally, I’m happy for others not to if they are just a participant. The “80% is visual” is laughable. In a 2 hour progress meeting, I speak for maybe 10 minutes tops. My camera is off for the rest of the meeting, even in the most engaging meeting, keeping a “this is so interesting face” is exhausting. Being Gen X, I remember the days of conference calls before cameras existed. Nobody complained. I remember being in those 2 hour meetings in person and finding it hard to remain awake at the part that had nothing to do with me.

Your expectations are the issue here, not their behaviours. If one person is stopping you fostering a team wide spirit, you need to do more than just blame your new employee.

Plenty of others have realised that sitting in traffic for two hours every day was a waste of their time when there are alternative options. More fool anyone who chooses to do that when they can get a remote working job.

If she was hired on a full time remote position you don't really have any way to enforce her coming into the office. I'm surprised that at least hybrid wasn't required for the probation period, or even that it was made clear she would be expected to come into the office to meet the team f2f a couple of times a month.

As for the camera, don't ask her, tell her. Don't do it on a group call though.
You don't say how long she's been in the job for so I'm not sure if you regularly have new-starter meetings. That would be the time to raise it, so she can explain any reasons she has for not having it on.

Why do people pretend that work is the only time folk leave their house and interact with others? Not wanting to deal with the politics and distractions of a work environment doesn’t mean someone is isolating themselves.

Yes. Maybe I'm old-fashioned but I thought the boss is supposed to tell the employee what to do, and the employee is supposed to do as they are told.

This.

Come on OP you’re the boss start issuing a few instructions.

I understand that and you’re right. However from what I’ve seen (work within recruitment and also in a creative career where I’ve seen a lot of completely remote workers), this does tend to have a common thread that they start to isolate themselves and it creates its own issues. I was remote for many years and found myself struggling more and more to push myself to interact and my career started to suffer. I was pushed outside my comfort zone to a hybrid role and I’m loving it.
Some do want remote positions to gain time back, save on expenses and they have a truly active social life and hobbies and they use it to their advantage. But I think that tends to be the minority.
Especially if she won’t even turn her camera on. That’s not generally someone who’s socialising substantially outside of work. Also in reality, it is a big part of where people make friends. Not the sole area, but it can be a big part.

Not being funny but you have interviewed her face to face ?!
It’s not an over employment situation whereby a person holds down multiple jobs remotely? There has been lots of talk in the news about it.

Yes I was coming on to say that! No wonder she can’t keep a job.

She needs to have her camera on, end of. No ifs or buts. Just tell her, OP @outofofficeon

Is she on probation?

The thing with the camera being off during Zoom meetings is interesting. I (aged over 50) was recently involved in a project with 5 much younger colleagues (all under 30). Three of them never had their cameras on during Zoom calls! I was not the group leader so didn't bring it up, assuming it was some kind of technical issue. Maybe instead it is a generational thing. Just to add, this is in an industry where meetings with clients in person and remotely is required all the time. Zoom meetings are bad enough anyway, but to have voices with no accompanying visual is pretty disconcerting, and a lot is lost in translation.

Agree with PPs that if her contract states homeworking then it is unreasonable for you to expect her to come into the office. It is a shame that she doesn't want to but you cannot require it and I would not even encourage her too strongly as it is not what she signed up for.

However, cameras on for meetings is expected and this should be made clear. Very few people have this in their contract but it is a common expectation.

If the contract says 100% homeworking, it is what it is really. But for the cameras just be clear you need it on the majority of the time.

If she’s still on probation I would meet and extend her probation, explaining that refusing to put cameras on etc means she hasn’t yet meshed with the team as you’d expect a new joiner to. I expect you can legally require one or two paid for trips to the office a year of ‘reasonable travel’ is relevant but would consult your hr/legal or external legal advice before saying this.

I've spent my entire working life masking my own neurodiversity to fit in, at often great personal cost - this would irk me too.

If its a key requirement for the job role then you either find a way to make it palatable or its not the job for you.

That. And this:

you are the boss and I think you should maybe remember that employees are supposed to do what their boss tells them to do.

You sound incredibly wishy washy. If your boss tends you to do something perfectly reasonable, like come in to meet the team, and put your camera on, you do it. She seems to think that she's her own boss! Good grief. Just tell her.

In an employment context, I think an employer is fully entitled to stipulate that employees must have their cameras on during meetings. The employer is paying, them, they're entitled to ensure that each employee is fully engaged n the meeting. After all, if they were in the office they couldn't insist on hiding away from everyone else.

If her contract was on the office, her boss could tell her to visit clients. Or attend training at another venue.
I don't see her attending the office to meet the team as any different from the requirements that would be asked of someone working in the office.