Managing Increased Conflict and Tension in Remote Working Teams

After the COVID-19 pandemic forced companies around the world to institute remote working policies, “experts” flooded the Internet with tutorials, workshops, webinars, and other kinds of “help content” designed to teach people how to use remote working tools. That’s not a bad thing, but it’s also not the only thing people need. Learning to work remotely isn’t just about mastering the technologies. Remote work alters the social dynamics of workplace communities, and we need to be helping people understand those things, too.

Why remote working is hard

The company I ran prior to taking my current position had a 100% remote team. If I’m being honest, it was terrible. Not the company or the people… they were great. But working remotely was my least favorite part of that job. I didn’t fully understand why until I moved into my current position, a job that — until the pandemic — was 100% in-person.

My previous, remote-based company struggled with communication. Despite spending hours in video conferences each week and using every great online collaboration tool we could find — Slack, Trello, Salesforce, Jira, whatever — none of those are perfect substitutes for sharing a physical office space with your coworkers.