Remote employee engagement

In the post Covid era when people are actually back to flooding offices and the highways are back to being jammed 24/7 and the elevator space is being hogged by everyone who has to get off before you, is remote still preferred?

Been thinking about how remote work has changed the game for new hires. At my company, we've had to completely overhaul our onboarding process. It's been a real challenge trying to make newbies feel part of the team when they've never even set foot in our office. We've tried virtual coffee chats and online team-building activities, but it's not quite the same. How has your company handled this? Have you found any creative ways to build company culture in a remote setting?

Need feedback from folks, who work remotely from India for companies outside India. How do you manage the timezone lapses? How do you manage being connected with the coworkers, who are globally spread out?

I work remotely as stated above in the title and curious to know how you guys who are also working remotely manage work and life. When we work in office setup it is define that once we are ik office we can focus on work and when we are out of office we can focus on family and other stuffs. But in WFH setup it is quite complicated and sometimes I feel I'm missing the connect and enthusiasm to work as I've no one from my workplace to meet physically 1-1 on a coffee and discuss work, share knowledge etc. It feels like working in silos when you meet people virtually. We don't know the mood when we ask for call setup or the other person don't know if I'm in mood to take a call. How do you guys manage all these.

I wanted to bring up an interesting workplace policy change that's recently been implemented at my company. They've decided to make it mandatory for employees to be online on Discord in a voice call during working hours. This decision has sparked quite a debate among my colleagues, and I'm curious to hear your thoughts on what would constitute an ideal feedback on this workplace culture change. Some employees argue that this policy enhances communication and collaboration, especially in a remote work environment. They say it can replicate the casual, in-person conversations and camaraderie that have been lost in the transition to remote work. On the other hand, many employees are concerned about the impact on work-life balance and privacy. They feel that being constantly on a voice call can be invasive and distracting, leading to burnout and decreased productivity. They also worry about potential privacy issues when it comes to discussing personal matters or dealing with sensitive information. What is your overall opinion on the mandatory Discord voice call policy?

I'm a 2023 grad but I've worked in VC/HFT/GSoC/startups I'm so fed up with the WFO culture. What do you even get by getting employees in office? What's the point? I'm an engineer, I can write code from anywhere on the planet with internet and laptop. Been looking for a role since August, while having a solid dev ex yet all these fools are WFO that reduces half the number of companies I want to work for. Any suggestions or am I being a fool?

I am looking to join a Remote based QA Role and focus on health/finance/travel So I have been looking for remote QA with tech Stack (Selenium, Java, Python,Maven, TestNG, Api Testing, Appium and SQL)opportunities so that I can invest more (No rent), focus on health (less travel time more gym time), and travel (planning 2 international trips this year). For folks working remotely, please share your advice on how I can achieve this and if you guys have any suggestions for any of these topics, I am open for conversation. Thanks.