We miss the casual exchanges with our dry cleaners, the parents we see at school drop-off, and the Dunkin’ Donuts employee who remembers our coffee order….Not surprisingly, this isolation is not only impacting our health and well-being, but also our effectiveness and productivity at work.

A few months into my first job after graduate school, I realized that my worst professional fear was that I would never work anywhere else. No joke. I loved my job so much that I thought I’d never leave. We didn’t have a foosball table or free beer on Fridays, but the company culture was so amazing that my co-workers and I developed a deep commitment to the company.

The curtain shielding the more personal side of our colleagues’ lives was ripped open these last few months. However, we also had a peek into the real lives of our colleagues, and if we do this right, we can leverage what we’ve learned into becoming better managers.