THE LONG TERM EFFECT OF COVID AND YOUR CAREER - WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Like many who are reading this, I am sitting at home on a laptop with a backlight for my zoom calls, an iPad and phone sitting in charging stations. I have an ice coffee (I didn't have to spend $7 at Starbucks to get).. My daughter is in her room calling for snacks while she talks to friends from her iPad.. I am about to start my 3rd call of the morning as I tuck into a chia bowl.. No commute, no stressful start to the day but something is starting to feel off. Something is missing. I know it.. As productive as I believe I am with calls, and shared docs to collaborate on I am missing real interaction. I can't remember the last time I was in a room throwing up ideas on a whiteboard and doing what teams do best - ideate, innovate, challenge openly and drive highly paced outcomes.

There are absolutely positive things about working from home but even as companies begin to institute hybrid working one thing is becoming more and more apparent. We didn't take location into account when hiring over the past 3 years and now bringing people together is something of an ordeal. We are highly distributed. More so that we realized across the various teams. 

Additionally, hiring remotely, and here I must confess I struggled to truly ascertain some of the soft skills over zoom - this has left some lingering challenges on the chemistry between some team members in various groups. 

So the purpose of this post is mostly to hear from you all? How are you doing in terms of personal and team productivity? Any tips or learnings? Would love to get your thoughts and ideas..