Imagine you've just joined a virtual team. How does it feel?

When I started my first job 20 years ago, I was based in Manchester, the head office was in London and my colleagues were all over the UK.

After a short face-to-face induction, I had to work from home before heading off to my very first project in France.

Everything was new to me. Scary! How can I work with people if we are not physically sharing the same space? How will I get help if I'm stuck? How can people trust people that they are actually working from home?

My boss called to ask how I was doing (and to give me stuff to do). She also gave me a couple of colleagues' names and she said: These are your buddies, call them if you're stuck.

The phone rang again. And again. My buddies called to introduce themselves and to see how I was doing. I felt surrounded by fab people. The old program in my head, telling me that it's not possible to work from home, was replaced by a new belief that people can work together from anywhere...

People could collaborate remotely already 20 years ago, with less technology. How about today?

If you want more connection, collaboration and smoother relationships with your colleagues (newcomers or not) while working remotely, try the following...

• If you are a newcomer, don't be shy, call people to present yourself.
• If there's a newcomer in the team, call them to welcome them. People will appreciate it if a colleague calls to say Hello, without asking for anything (for once!)
• Instead of sending loads of e-mails and WhatsApp messages, start a video call and talk to people. You know it's faster than typing. Nobody cares if you're having a bad hair day.
• Make time to call people from different nationalities and in different time zones.
• If you're thinking, I don't have time for this, think about it as an investment of your time.
• ...and if you're thinking: what do I tell people? How about Hello, how are you? before talking about business.
• Make time to nourish relationships already working well. You don't have to be long, just be sincere.

How about bringing the human factor back into virtual teams?