I had a situation in my team where I knew for certain that a team member was not working while remote, as they were not responding to messages and had limited availability. This planted seeds of distrust. I could have confronted them directly or devised a strategy to resolve the issue at hand. I chose the latter, knowing that the individual would likely feel defensive if called out.
I encouraged the team to come into the office more often to avoid distractions when working remotely, indirectly signaling that this shift was driven by trust concerns and that increased in-person presence could help rebuild the lost trust.
