Hmm, I think I've seen this happen to us by design.
I worked at a place that hired off shore (European) consultants for a part of our product and my colleagues would constantly complain about the quality of the consultants work and skillset.
I didn't complain[0]
Eventually corporate switched out the current body shop with equally bad off shore one from a different European country, but this time around they'd invite them to our HQ before hand for a week to to have lunch and spend time with before being sent back home to work remotely with us.
This time around no in my team said anything bad about the new group. These consultants weren't better than the previous ones at all, and ended up doing more damage eventually. Hell, some of the mistakes they did, the previous ones would do as well
Granted you could attribute it to "what's the point", but I suspect largely because of what you mentioned, face to face made them mellow... or from my PoV, weaker.
1: The reason I didn't complain is because they weren't any worse than my in house colleagues anyway and I found the irony funny and I was on my way out anyway.
No point in stepping into the fire unless I can control it.
I worked at a place that hired off shore (European) consultants for a part of our product and my colleagues would constantly complain about the quality of the consultants work and skillset.
I didn't complain[0]
Eventually corporate switched out the current body shop with equally bad off shore one from a different European country, but this time around they'd invite them to our HQ before hand for a week to to have lunch and spend time with before being sent back home to work remotely with us.
This time around no in my team said anything bad about the new group. These consultants weren't better than the previous ones at all, and ended up doing more damage eventually. Hell, some of the mistakes they did, the previous ones would do as well
Granted you could attribute it to "what's the point", but I suspect largely because of what you mentioned, face to face made them mellow... or from my PoV, weaker.
1: The reason I didn't complain is because they weren't any worse than my in house colleagues anyway and I found the irony funny and I was on my way out anyway.
No point in stepping into the fire unless I can control it.