I’ve seen conversations on Lemmy recently point to open call channels, akin to what you might see in Discord channels, where employees can join the channel on their own and allow opportunities for spontaneous conversation and visiting with others.

That is exactly how it works, assuming the company is using a tool like Slack to facilitate it. All those things that the "billionaire" are problematic in person because of stratification... nobody is going to cross those barriers unless they already have an "in".

A tool like Slack, where people can lurk on conversations, or actively jump in, or start new ones... organized into topical channels (both public and private) allow for that kind of organic socializing without the barrier of - for example - business casual plebes and senior managers or execs in tailored suits being intimidated by one another's appearance or work location. These tools allow for much more collaboration, socialization, and breaking-down-of-barriers than a purely physical space ever could.

From there, the trick is to build on that by providing opportunities for those remote people to meet up in person at least once per year (see: "Team Building Events").

And if you need to meet face-to-face or "look over a shoulder" at something... that's what tools like Zoom (or Slack Huddles, or Teams Video, etc) are for! You can do it on the spot without walking to a different area, building, or campus... instantly.

The fact that people like this are completely oblivious to how this is supposed to work is horrifying. We're not talking about social isolation, here. It's 100% a leadership problem... tech illiterate imbeciles that have no idea how remote work can, does, and is supposed to work.