When you started working from home during the pandemic, our training classes and public meetings moved mostly online. We, our clients and Zoom figured out how to make virtual coaching and engagement work well enough to stay in business. But we also realized that, although it was convenient and did the basic job, something in the humanity of it always seemed to be missing.

As some organizations and the federal government in particular are now pushing hard to bring workers back in-house and face to face again, it’s useful to look at just how effective it is, or not, to force people back into more supposedly collaborative spaces. If you read between the lines, you’ll also see how this applies to bringing people together in community meetings.