What happened when our team met for the first time in person …

Working remotely as a team has become a new reality for many organizations across the globe since the pandemic. Last weekend our team got to work and play in person. We have always worked remotely as our team is living in different cities across the Netherlands and Germany. Before our weekend had started, I felt most excited about finally hugging each team member and feeling their energy. I was curious about fully sensing their presence and just really seeing how they would move and smile in real life. I hadn’t seen Amir, Linda, and Wilma for almost a year and most of us had never met Jules in person as she lives close to Berlin.

Besides feeling positively overwhelmed when I saw them, I underestimated the effect of spending time together in person. This immense difference is even difficult to express in words right now – it was just something that needs to be felt.

I think the best way I can describe it is unfamiliar familiarity. A metaphor could be watching a movie that you have not seen in ages and even though you kind of remember the storyline, you are surprised by the little twists and emotional moments.

I felt surprised by how connected we felt and the degree of familiarity I experienced given the fact that we mostly or only had interacted online before. The whole weekend felt like a big, warm hug.

I realized how the online environment only allows us to get to know each other to a certain extent: In-between moments like cycling and exploring the neighborhood of Amsterdam together or the sound of everyone’s laughs in real life make a difference in getting to know each other fully.

Before our team weekend, the team spent some time reflecting on how we would like our time to look and feel. Our agreement included that besides working, we would spend time playing and connecting and having fun and that we would spend around 50% of the time outside. These two agreements definitely contributed to making this weekend such a flowing, powerful, and connecting experience.

A few days later I can still feel the buzzing connection in my heart. Full of pure, emotional, warm moments … realizing how human connection is what makes teams and life so beautiful. To all the remotely working teams out there:

Connect in person - it is so worth it.

-By Nida, Inner Work-Out Community Manager