If you use Slack, I think the admin panel already contains the number of messages in channels VS DMs. Long time I last saw it myself, but I think it was missing a breakdown on how many members of the Slack received the channel/"public" messages (as not everyone is part of every channel, 2 member channels vs 200 member channels for example), maybe it looks different now.
> 5. Slack Is Great But (SIGB) - teach people that they don’t need to read everything. Many people get overwhelmed
I think this happens when Slack is the "source of truth", because the ephemeral feeling it gives since it's a chat ultimately. If you instead use a wiki/whatever to actually collect things that are important, there is less stress about possibly missing out on important things. Make summaries by week/month and it'll be even easier for people to catch up easily, which means even less stress :)
All notifications disabled and I only read when pinged. davison updates are the only mechanism allowed.
You have a company policy that allows that. For example, if anything is decided in Slack, it has to be "codified" somewhere else, like a wiki. Then you'll be able to justify not reading through all messages.
However, my experience is the difference between 0 in person meetups and even 1 per year is astounding. I was at one company that didn't have in person meetups for years and when they finally did the company culture changed (for the better) over night. The difference between 1 per year and 4 per year is negligible barring the fact that the latter makes me start to dread meetups rather than enjoy them.
What benefit would you see in doing this? The only thing I've heard is some consider it nice to be in close proximity to others, but that doesen't really sound like a business reason
As you said it's hard to quantify the value, but anecdotally I notice it most in 3 (distinct but somewhat overlapping) areas:
(1) Overall morale - everyone enjoys work more when you have a good relationship with your coworkers, so people are willing to do more than the bare minimum. People approaching burnout feel more enthusiastic about work afterwards. (2) Everyone is more inclined to help each other out with tasks outside of their routine but within their skillset, reducing bottlenecks. (3) Similarly, you develop a better sense of each other's personalities and skillsets in a way that's much more difficult when remote, so communication is more efficient, and collaboration more effective due to that increase in understanding and empathy.
1. Meet in person every quarter. Fly people into the HQ if there is one. If not just rent meeting place.
2. Have a well written handbook like Gitlab that explains how your company works.
3. Onboarding program - remote onboarding sucks. Do onboarding in person (if you can) or assign an onboarding buddy if you can’t.
4. Slack Is Great But (SIGB) - teach people that they don’t need to read everything. Many people get overwhelmed. Great engineers don’t read everything nor should they. Let everyone know that it’s a shared brain or knowledge source - and it’s ok to turn it off to focus.