Me and one of my employees are going through almost identical and seriously difficult personal times. Our company and the people within it have really rallied around us, providing personal and professional support in ways I could never have imagined.
I have said that while other companies I have worked within would be sympathetic, they definitely would not have been empathetic; however, at my current company, EVERYONE from the CEO to interns have been so very empathetic, helpful, and thoughtful.
We are all remote and have been since the pandemic. These are people who are reaching out regularly, coming to visit, offering support in whatever way possible, and being genuinely good human beings. It's simply a work culture when you don't have this, but you CAN find it.
Don't lose hope. Good companies and great people within them are there, remote or not.
I've mostly worked for old-timey telco companies not from CA/WA and they're pretty behind the times on empathetic leadership in my experience. I didn't really start even experiencing what I consider empathetic leadership until I started working for CA/WA companies over the last 5 years.
Any remotely awkward event that popped up you likely had a boss who just didn't say a peep about anything because they didn't want to rock the boat.
Thankfully I'm seeing a lot more reports of the opposite this week but there's still a lot of those companies out there.
It's somewhat surprising to think that in the course of 30+ years of work life, I've only had two co-workers die. I wasn't especially close with either of them, but the contrast is noteworthy.
The first, was a suicide of a teammate who was in his 20s. The company's reaction was kind of shitty. They didn't point the other team members to things like the EAP. They didn't offer bereavement time to the team members. They even docked time from PTO allotments for those who missed a half-day of work to attend the funeral.
The second, was a teammate in his 30s who died from cancer. I've been remote with the team since the beginning and never met anyone in person. He'd been struggling with health issues for the few months he was with us (he'd come back from a 6-month medical leave of absence before joining our team). The level of empathy and support from management at all levels was superlative. They made sure that we were aware of all the support that was available, let us know we were able to take off time if we needed it to process his death (including a member of the team who's a contractor), etc. Suffice it to say that I'm very happy with my current employer and know that they have my back if I need support.
The tightest professional relationships I've made in many moons were made entirely remote during some Covid-19 relief work. I still haven't met any of them in person, but there was as much humanity in that project as we ever get working-from-work.
Both at the beginning and in the end the answer is always simple: hope. Not all people. There are good ones, even in technology. There are coworkers with whom your shared emotional experience was authentic. There will be more.
I struggle with isolation at work. It really escalated during the pandemic. I run a small team and we're often isolated from everyone else, except the client in front of us at any moment in time. Most the work is indirect.
Coming back into the office, its a struggle to integrate back into a culture that, for me, appears to no longer exists. I'm trying to reconcile if this is my own doing, or if something else has changed. I look around and many of the faces in the back office are new. There's no love coming from the middle or front office or top brass.
To me, at this point in my life, I don't want to be monk. I want to feel like I belong, I want to feel like a valued member of a community. I've worked in financial technology and back office operations most of my career. I doubt I will find any of that in any back office these days.
I really appreciate this story, but I'm not sure I agree with seeing this tragically.
A working relationship is just something different. There is still emotion, because we're human. But more than anything, there's mutual trust and respect.
I have very deep and emotional connections with my family and with my friends, who I trust deeply and call on (and am called upon by) daily. But I wouldn't necessarily trust them with a technical project or start a small business with them or something in that realm.
Meanwhile the small startup I work with just released an app yesterday, one with lots of difficult problems that we worked through together to resolve over the past two years. I have such a thorough trust and respect for every member of that team - technical and not. I wouldn't call any of them for a personal issue.
I have friends who fall into both categories, but they are few and far between.
There's nothing wrong with these relationships, and there's nothing more or less valuable to them. They just work differently and for different reasons. I don't need to be my colleague's best person at their wedding or pall bearer at their sibling's funeral for us to have a long and solid relationship building amazing things. I don't need to start a business with my wife or teach my kid how to program for us to have full lives together.
Have you actually noticed this happening in your workplace? I've read these stories in the news but no one is acting like that at all where I work which is a mid sized tech start up. Everyone is VERY understanding and accommodating there is a general atmosphere of dealing with a very difficult situation together.
That is no doubt a great thing. I'm not trying to suggest that workplace bonds and friendships are meaningless, just that people need to have appropriate expectations about what the relationship with the company fundamentally is. Theres no doubt space for compassion, it just shouldn't be viewed as an entitlement.
No worries, you and others are helping me see this.
It's such a good point to find the right environment. I think that's the best approach going forward with other companies. I've worked with many people over the years and was perfectly fine not being close friends or anything like that, this is the first time I've had people actively trying to exclude me from inter staff things as well as with others in the local community.
Coming from a 25-member tech team where all local members are very close (we get along well), I think that a big part of what makes us operate well as a team is our closeness. We get less stressed during crises, communicate better, etc. because we are connected.
That type of connection is difficult to establish with our remote members. Because they aren't sitting right next to us, we can't joke around or come over to chat with them in order to get some mental relief from the daily grind.
Essentially, our work environment is enhanced by personal contact with fellow employees, something that isn't easily established with remote workers.
This is sadly the norm in many companies, especially in NA. Helping each other out is not seen as something worthwhile. It's everyone for themselves. You have metrics to hit!
I can't tell you how feasible it is to find companies that actually value working together and helping each other out. I can tell you that there exist some companies where at least parts of the company do actually value this. I happen to value this and my manager does and some of his other reports and their teams do. I doubt the company overall actually does value it.
But like you say, even if you find such a company, every new hire is a challenge because everyone is just so trained to think that everyone just cares for themselves and that everything must be a ruse. It's hard to break through this. From both sides. I know it was for me. I couldn't believe it and it's hard to let your guard down and just work with others like you're actually friends.
I disagree, my father ran a small business (physical goods) and the people in his company were almost like a family. They felt as such, we treated them as such, it was amazing...brings a tear. I cannot emphasize this enough: It was far better relationship than resentful people on HN who are constantly complaining about work. They were happier as a whole.
This has long been true to some degree when you work with people scattered around the world. But it's a legit concern that, overall, we're probably developing much shallower relationships with the people we work with compared to when we were together in-person more of the time. Doubtless there are people who prefer just tuning out co-workers as much as possible. But it's reasonable to ask how it will affect many companies in the longer run when many co-worker relationships are very surface compared to pre-COVID.
I started a new job after the start of COVID, and it has been really hard to build the personal relationships to become fully effective (our offices are spread out globally). My manager has said that pre-COVID days, I would have had the chance to meet many of my colleagues face-to-face and have a few beers with them, which would have greased the wheel to creating some personal connections. It's always easier to request help from someone who has a good impression of you.
Similarly with clients. It's much easier for people to go on attack-mode when they are displeased when it's only through email or a video conference where people have their cameras off. Unhappy clients can be placated and turned towards working together to a solution much more easily in person, and happy clients can be turned into long term partners more easily over dinner and friendly chats. This is especially true of customers in Asia.
As a previous new hire who got into a new job during full blown Covid, I had no problem whatsoever building a good relationship with my colleagues. Regular routines were setup, the team communicated frequently. Frequent calls. Eventually mMemes started to be shared, and we built a good work/personal friendship exclusively online.
I didn't miss face-to-face in the slightest, nor did i feel like i didn't belong, or that I was lacking support. We have plenty of online trainings as well.
Face to face being needed for new hires is another myth that needs to go.
I have said that while other companies I have worked within would be sympathetic, they definitely would not have been empathetic; however, at my current company, EVERYONE from the CEO to interns have been so very empathetic, helpful, and thoughtful.
We are all remote and have been since the pandemic. These are people who are reaching out regularly, coming to visit, offering support in whatever way possible, and being genuinely good human beings. It's simply a work culture when you don't have this, but you CAN find it.
Don't lose hope. Good companies and great people within them are there, remote or not.
reply