I was trawling the internet and came across an article about a sign spotted in a grocery chain: “To avoid causing embarrassment to others we ask that our customers are appropriately dressed when visiting the store.

Sleepwear/payamas (sic) is not permitted.”

I immediately reached for my schedule. I had to verify my whereabouts on the days leading up to the article. I breathed a sigh of relief. I was nowhere near the store. To be clear, I would never go to the store in my PJ’s or sleepwear. I just needed certainty.

I started questioning, why now? Why has this never happened before? What was different? And then it struck me, the pandemic. And this got me thinking.

I remember when I started working from home. Everyone turned on their cameras for the online meeting. Slowly people stopped turning on their cameras. And soon we were having audio-only online meetings. We relegated video conferencing to telephone conferencing. We swapped the advantages of video conferencing, for the disadvantages of audio conferencing.

The excuses I hear most often for not turning on the camera is: “I am having a bad hair day,” or “I am not dressed for the meeting”.  Is this code for: “I am still in my PJs” or the extreme, “I am having a back to nature day”, or something between.

I remember receiving an invite to join four different WhatsApp groups. After joining I got a message to install Teams. I now have three Teams instances and six WhatsApp groups to monitor. Where are the integrated collaboration tools when you need them?

Do you have a team member who is notorious for not responding to texts or emails? Here is a possible solution. On every group that the person is a member post your request. There should be at least one group on which the person will respond. If this fails a text and email claiming that they are on leave should remedy the situation.

The thing I miss the most is the coffee machine or lunchtime chats. This is where we explored some crazy idea or some problem that someone was struggling with. This is the part that I enjoyed the most and where some of the most innovative ideas were born.

Working from home does have its advantages but I fear that we losing our connection with each other. I fear it is creating silos working on an integrated whole. I fear it is impacting the effectiveness of the team. I fear it is impairing the team’s performance. I fear it is stifling thought diversity and innovation. Most of all, I fear that if we cannot resolve it, it will relegate Work From Home to the annals of Failed Experiments.