Bonding Remotely With New Hires

 Some good thoughts  here.

Managers, Here’s How to Bond with New Hires Remotely  in HBRWK  by Iavor I. Bojinov and Prithwiraj Choudhury shows how "virtual watercooler" sessions can make all the difference.

For senior managers at many firms, the shift to remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic came with a huge concern: Would the loss of in-person conversations keep them from mentoring or simply establishing rapport with employees, especially rookie workers?

New research, based on a first-of-its-kind field experiment at a large North American company, provides plenty of reassurance, showing that regular Zoom chats with managers fosters solid career-building connections for new workers.

In fact, informal “virtual watercooler” sessions in which interns chat with managers regularly online significantly improve the performance and satisfaction of workers and boost the chances of hiring them permanently, according to the results of the study by Harvard Business School professors Iavor I. Bojinov and Prithwiraj Choudhury and HBS postdoctoral fellow Jacqueline N. Lane.

COVID-19 forced many big companies that offer internships to cultivate talent, including JPMorgan Chase, Deloitte, and PepsiCo, to roll out virtual programs in 2020. The study’s findings offer reassurance to the 81 percent of companies offering virtual or hybrid internships this year, as well as many firms that have been onboarding more permanent talent remotely. ... '