it does rather beg the question

Nope. It just raises the question.

Based on two decades of experience: As a general rule, there should be regular in-person team events (around two a year and just for fun). In addition, there should be joint training sessions (also around two a year). New staff members require a great deal of attention from their team, both at these events and when working remotely, particularly at the outset.

Also if there’s an option to go to the office, that works too. I’d like to have an office to go to once a month or less, just for the social, meet people irl, etc, but wouldn’t give up remote work for it.

In your experience, have any online social things worked well? We’re always looking out for stuff where I am.

Cooking together is brilliant: just yesterday we held our summer strategy meeting at a cookery school, where we cooked and enjoyed a three-course meal together. Basically, anything that encourages plenty of interaction and offers a completely different setting to the usual one is ideal.

That’s cool! I love a good shared project. But we are global so I need online stuff.

A former manager had team lunches every month. It wasn’t mandatory but it was a day that we could go in and team members would be there. It was also not a day taken up with general business update meetings and the like, so we could get work done.

The key is ensuring that people know when they can go in and see other people they know, not just the marketing team.

Once a month is my ideal cadence too. Very easy to manage that. But for me, we’re global so it would be be expensive 🤣

A step further it should be more than twice a year I would say once a quarter would be more preferable. There should also be one day a week everyone on the team should be expected to be in the office. Beyond that max 3 days a week none of this minimum bullshit.

If more are needed, just give it a try. We’ve learned that organising more than 3-4 a year is very time-consuming, particularly when it comes to scheduling them for the whole team.

Eh, capitalism can get bent.

Which is bullshit, I joined and have worked for a remote only company for over a decade now and I’ve never met any of my coworkers, but I chat and have calls with them daily and we all have the office banter and even talk about outside work stuff as well. You don’t need to know people to magically work remote, that’s just an excuse to stuff people into a building together.