If You Never Met Your Co-Workers in Person, Did You Even Work There?

Martin Anquetil, 22, who started working at Google in August last year, also never met his colleagues face to face. Google did not put much effort into making him feel connected socially, he said, and there was no swag or other office perks — like free food — that the internet company is famous for.

Mr. Anquetil said his attention had begun to wander. His lunchtime video game sessions seeped into work time, and he started buying basketball highlights on N.B.A. Top Shot, a cryptocurrency marketplace, while on the clock. In March, he quit Google to work at Dapper Labs, the start-up that teamed up with the National Basketball Association to create Top Shot.

If one wants to work at Google and “put in 20 hours a week and pretend you’re putting in 40 while doing other stuff, that’s fine, but I wanted more connection,” he said.

Google declined to comment.

To help prevent more people from leaving their jobs because they have not formed in-person bonds, some employers are reconfiguring their corporate cultures and spinning up new positions like “head of remote” to keep employees working well together and feeling motivated. In November, Facebook hired a director of remote work, who is responsible for helping the company adjust to a mostly remote work force.

Other companies that quickly shifted to remote work have not been adept at fostering community over video calls, said Jen Rhymer, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford who studies workplaces.

“They can’t just say, ‘Oh, be social, go to virtual happy hours,’” Dr. Rhymer said. “That by itself is not going to create a culture of building friendships.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/08/business/never-met-co-workers.html