Fighting Isolation and Loneliness on Your Remote Team

For many people, working from home during COVID has been a big success. At least it’s worked better than many people anticipated. But the longer it goes on and the more uncertainty there is about what the return to the office will look like, or even if it will occur, the more we have to deal with a hidden and very destructive force—isolation and loneliness.
As the leader, you may even be feeling some of this yourself. Even as an admitted curmudgeon who has worked remotely for almost two decades, I know that there’s a whole world outside my window I’m not a part of. My one social activity a week was my writer’s group. While we now have Thursday night Zoom meetings to read and critique each other’s work, the last thing I need after a day of teaching and consulting is another freaking webcam meeting! And it’s not the