It's on the manager to put an end to shallow, robotic management theater and replace it with something meaningful or at least enjoyable. Don't do the round-robin project updates that are of no value to anyone - if you've set up the culture correctly, people will talk to each other when they need to. Use the time to do something that is of interest to everyone on the team, even if it's not directly related to the everyday work. If you can't think of anything, don't hold the meeting and think harder when you're planning for next week's meeting.

Ultimately, it's a symptom. But it helps to have an agenda. Perhaps an "assignment." It also requires someone - don't necessarily have to be the manager - to facilitate.

I get it. On-site teams to remote teams is work. But at this point, if leadership and management haven't figured it out then they're either negligent or incompotent.

How do you fix that? Either an excess in training or pink slips. I'm not saying someone should be sacked for being a bad manager. I'm saying they should be sacked for being content with being bad, and making no effort to fix that.