These few weekly half-hours small talk make work more enjoyable. Communication barriers are lowered and channels smoothened.Mutual reliance, understanding, and coordination increase. Slowing down and making social time helps people be better teammates.

Regular Small Talk

Nonvirtual work cements social relationships. And for remote workers, being committed to making an effort and spending resources to make remote work feel personal and connected can replace that.Just scheduling a video call once a week and having some pleasant small talk can be enough to build relationships that last.

Real Remote Communication Experience

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<img src="https://blog.trello.com/hs-fs/hubfs/How-to-Feel-Connected-Final.png?width=2400&amp;name=How-to-Feel-Connected-Final.png">Even though I've been working remotely as a software engineer at Trello for several years, I've recently picked up a new habit: I schedule two ~30 minute weekly video calls with individuals on my team, just for social interaction and casual conversation. This simple change to my calendar helps me enjoy work more and feel more connected. 
In fact, I'm surprised this works as well for me as it does. Here's why I would recommend any remote worker to give it a try.
<h2>A Real Remote Communication Experience</h2>
My day-to-day work involves a lot of communication: countless Trello cards, comments on Trello cards, emails, code reviews, instant messaging, video calls (a.k.a. Zoom calls), shared documents on Confluence, comments on shared documents, a plethora of Jira tickets. I am firmly enmeshed in my (largely remote) team; my finger is on the pulse. My buzz adds to the loud, rich, hum of the hive. And yet.
I used to do quite a lot of technical screen interviews for engineer candidates. Sometimes they would ask me how it was working remotely. Some of the candidates seemed to have had bad experiences being remote at previous jobs, others hadn't done it and were curious. I would sandwich what I thought was the drawback:
Good news: I've worked at three companies remotely, Trello is doing remote the best of those three.
Bad news: I am still real life friends with people I worked with from previous in-office jobs. I haven't made the same kind of friendships at my remote jobs.
Good news: Trello does have programs in place to counteract that, these things are great! We're committed to making an effort and spending resources to make remote work feel personal and connected.
I thought that was a neat way of addressing the issue. The statement about the friendships I've made is inarguably true. It lets the candidate make their own decisions about how important that kind of thing is to them in a job.
It points towards a thing I find a bit hard to put into words: there's something missing from my remote work compared to my in-office work, something to do with being a friendly, social, human being.
<h2>A Quick Calendar Invite</h2>
If I remember correctly, here's how simply I changed up my social habits at work: At an offsite, I was chatting with one of my teammates and telling them about this problem with remote work, and they said: "Well, you and I will have a call once a week then. Here-I'll put it on the calendar".
To which I replied: "Cool, that'll be nice."
And it was nice! Pleasant chit chats about the things you might discuss while getting a coffee in the office kitchen: What we did over the weekend, the weather, what we're working on lately (I am, as you can see, a fascinating conversationalist). After a while I thought I might spread it about a bit more throughout the team. We had a new team member I had hardly spoken to, so I sent them a DM on Slack.
Cue dramatic reenactment:<blockquote>
'Hey, I've been doing these 30 minute social calls with [other teammate] do you want to try doing them too? It's just for fun.'
'.... ok?'
'Sweet! I've put it on the calendar'
'How about we do it every other week?'
'Well it's on the calendar now, let's try it and see how it goes.'
'kk'
</blockquote>
And guess what? Those calls are also very pleasant! We've been doing low pressure, weekly social calls for about a year and now I would naturally say that these two teammates are my friends, rather than nice people I work with.
<h2>Connection: It's About The Little Things</h2>
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Even though I've been working remotely as a software engineer at Trello for several years, I've recently picked up a new habit: I schedule two ~30 minute weekly video calls with individuals on my team, just for social interaction and casual conversation. This simple change to my calendar helps me enjoy work more and feel more connected.

Feeling Connection As A Remote Worker? It's About The Little Things

Regular Small Talk

Real Remote Communication Experience

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