Team leaders, mid-level managers, and company executives share a unique challenge in 2022: connecting with their employees is more onerous than ever before. Remote and hybrid work arrangements are now ubiquitous in many sectors, often boosting employee morale and enhancing retention but making it more difficult to develop collaborative communities forged from trust and experience.

There has been no shortage of digital ink spilled about the merits and pitfalls of remote work. A seemingly unending surge of worker surveys, scientific studies, pundit prognostications and C-suite demands have coalesced around the one intractable truth — nobody seems to agree if remote work is a productivity boon or bust. To be sure, today’s companies are highly motivated to understand this dynamic.