Your team shows up to the weekly Zoom call. Cameras on, everyone nodding politely. Someone shares their screen. You review numbers, celebrate a few achievements, remind everyone about upcoming deadlines. The meeting ends right on time.
And yet, nobody feels more connected than when they logged on.
If you're a real estate brokerage owner or team leader trying to maintain culture in a remote or hybrid environment, you've probably noticed this. You're doing everything right. Regular video calls, team updates, virtual check ins. But your agents still feel isolated. They're technically together, but they're not actually connected.
Here's why Zoom meetings fail at building real connection, and more importantly, what you can do instead.
The Illusion of Together
Video calls look like connection but feel empty. Everyone's face appears on a screen, but the experience leaves you isolated. You sit alone in your home office, pretending to be engaged while secretly checking email or worrying about your internet connection.
Real connection requires three things that Zoom structurally prevents: spontaneity, reciprocity, and the freedom to be unpolished.
Zoom meetings are scheduled, structured, and performative. Someone runs the agenda. People wait their turn to speak. Everyone's watching everyone else watch them. This isn't connection. This is a staged presentation of professionalism.
In a physical office, connection happens in the margins. The conversation before the meeting starts. The moment someone admits they're struggling and another person says "me too." The joke that breaks tension. The casual hallway conversation where someone actually asks how you're doing and waits for a real answer.
Zoom has no margins. It's all agenda, all performance, all the time.
Why Real Estate Teams Struggle Most
Real estate agents already work in isolation. Most are independent contractors operating solo. They might share office space, but they're running individual businesses. The relationships are inherently competitive, even on collaborative teams.
Pre pandemic, the office provided accidental connection. Agents came in to drop off paperwork, grab coffee, complain about a difficult client. Those moments weren't scheduled. They just happened. And in those unstructured interactions, people actually got to know each other.
When everyone went remote or hybrid, those accidental moments disappeared. Now connection has to be intentional. And when connection becomes a calendar invite, it stops feeling natural.
Your agents log into the team meeting. They report their numbers. They listen to updates. They log off and go back to working alone. The meeting happened, but nothing changed. They're still isolated, just with better lighting.
The Performance Problem
Zoom meetings demand performance. You're on camera. Your background is visible. You need to look engaged, competent, successful. Even when you're exhausted, frustrated, or barely holding it together, you show up with a smile and say everything's fine.
Connection requires the opposite. It requires letting people see you as you actually are, not as you're performing to be.
When an agent is struggling with a deal, losing motivation, or questioning whether this career is sustainable, they need to be able to say that out loud. Not in a formal setting where everyone's watching. Not in a structured meeting where vulnerability feels risky. But in a low stakes moment where honesty is safe.
Zoom meetings don't create that safety. They create pressure to maintain the illusion that everything's under control.
The agents who feel most connected on your team aren't the ones attending every Zoom call. They're the ones who've found a teammate they can text at 9pm and say "today was brutal." They're the ones who've built informal support systems outside the official structure.
If you want your team to feel connected, you need to create space for that kind of honesty. And that space doesn't exist in a scheduled video meeting.
What Actually Builds Connection in Remote Teams
If Zoom meetings don't work, what does? The answer isn't more meetings. It's creating structures that allow for genuine, unscripted interaction.
Here's what actually works:
Smaller, optional conversations. Instead of mandatory all team calls, create small group spaces where agents can drop in if they want support. Three to five people meeting monthly to talk about what's actually hard about the work right now. No agenda, no performance, just honest conversation.
Peer accountability partnerships. Pair agents together for regular check ins. Not to report metrics, but to support each other's goals and challenges. When two people commit to showing up for each other consistently, real trust develops.
Create vulnerability. Create a private Slack channel or group chat where agents can share real moments. Not highlight reels, but the messy middle. Someone posts "I lost a listing today and I'm questioning everything." Someone else responds "I've been there. Want to talk?" That exchange builds more connection than ten polished Zoom presentations.
Leaders going first. If you want your team to be real with each other, you have to model it. Share your own challenges. Admit when you're uncertain. Let your team see that struggling isn't a problem, it's part of the work. When leaders perform invincibility, everyone else feels pressure to do the same.
In person gatherings that aren't about business. If your team is hybrid, bring everyone together occasionally for something that isn't a meeting. A meal, a casual hangout, an activity. The point isn't team building exercises. The point is unstructured time where people can interact as humans, not professionals.
The Business Case for Real Connection
This isn't about making people feel good. This is about retention, performance, and sustainability.
Agents who feel genuinely connected to their team stay longer. They refer more business internally. They collaborate instead of competing. They recover from setbacks faster because they have people who actually support them.
Agents who feel isolated leave. They burn out. They start looking at other brokerages, not because of commission splits, but because they're tired of doing this work alone.
You can run Zoom meetings every week for the next year and still lose your best people. Or you can invest in building actual connection, the kind that makes people want to stay.
Making This Real
If you're reading this and recognizing that your team is going through the motions but not actually connecting, here's where to start:
Ask your agents directly. Not in a group setting, but one on one. "Do you feel supported by this team? Do you have people here you can be real with?" Listen to what they actually say, not what you hope they'll say.
Then create one small, low pressure space for genuine connection. Not another mandatory meeting. A monthly optional gathering for agents who want peer support. A Slack channel where people can debrief. A structure that allows honesty without performance.
Connection doesn't happen because you scheduled it. It happens because you created conditions where people feel safe being human with each other.
Zoom meetings can deliver information. They can coordinate logistics. They can celebrate successes. But they can't replace the unscripted, unpolished moments where real relationships form.
If your team feels disconnected despite regular video calls, it's not because you're doing meetings wrong. It's because meetings, by design, can't solve this problem.
What your team needs isn't more structure. It's more space to be real with each other.
Ready to help your team build genuine connection? The Connection Workshop gives your agents practical tools to support each other, even in remote and hybrid environments. Learn more about bringing this workshop to your brokerage.