"Companies should adopt an intentional and regular gathering strategy for all employees to connect routinely."
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I agree with this sentiment and the hard work is turning physical proximity into beneficial outcomes...for both the *people* and their *work together.*
Putting zero-sum, closed-minded, toxic, prejudiced and generally unpleasant people together will not magically produce better results. Although it's guaranteed to encourage people with different values to start looking for new organizations.
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Westrum's organizational model observations (https://itrevolution.com/articles/westrums-organizational-model-in-tech-orgs/) embrace location transparency. It's just as easy to shoot the messenger over Slack as it is over a conference table.
RTO mandates only affect the exposure profile, not the risk of exposure.
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Physical proximity does provide more secondary signals for juniors about what's normal and acceptable. It also *can* reduce the communication costs and social anxiety around asking learning questions.
But it can just as easily signal that their questions are "Googleable" and "something they should know". Plus, evolution has equipped us with diverse facial recognition and body language reading skills.
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TL;DR: It was/still is a pandemic, not a normal "distributed team" environment. Values and behaviors can be expressed in many different ways. An office is a place, not a gateway to an alternative universe.