Closeup shot of a diverse group of people high fiving together.
Several ingredients make an organization successful, including a thriving community. Whether you're exploring community to help prevent burnout, empower employees or build mentoring programs, building your community on the four cornerstones of trust, respect, communication and collaboration is key to peak performance and longevity. In a study, 92% of the 1300 North American executives agreed that improving corporate culture increases a company's overall value.
Community building is highly emotional work, not for the faint of heart. Everything matters when you're attempting to navigate other people's feelings and set boundaries. To avoid missteps, it's wise to get external insights. Good intentions aren't enough! Here's a quick example of what I mean by a good intention gone bad: the simple phrase "Work Family."
While the bonding and belonging aspects of a true family are transferable to the workplace, those ties often distort reality and cause us to overextend ourselves professionally. More specifically, we blur the lines of loyalty and make unwilling sacrifices because we developed a false sense of allegiance to our work family. This ultimately leads to regret and burnout.
Yes, "fixing" corporate culture may sometimes feel overwhelming. However, research from Great Place To Work analyzing a data set of more than 1,700 organizations representing roughly 4.5 million employees shows that precise, strategic actions can have a significant impact.
The daily work experiences of people in the groups below predicted how well their organizations fared during tough economic times.
- Women
- Front-line workers
- Hourly male workers
- Long-tenured employees
- People of Color
These employees were vital to their organization's success for several reasons:
- Many serve customers directly, so they're plugged into the reality of how the business is doing daily.
- They were often the first to suffer wage cuts, furloughs or layoffs.
- They were disproportionately affected as "essential workers" during the height of the pandemic.
- Historically, they also represent the groups that are most disadvantaged by issues of sexism, racism and class.
Great Place To Work also found that changing the experiences of these five people groups in the five critical areas below can positively impact community and performance. So, as you explore each one, pause and think about how leveling up in each of these areas could help your organization.
Treated as a full member
When employees feel valued, it increases the likelihood of engagement. Both recognition and appreciation go a long way.
Innovation
If new ideas only come from employees with similar tenures, physical similarities or even similar lived experiences or backgrounds, everything starts sounding the same. Diversity of thought is essential, and a company that encourages innovative thinking regardless of where someone is on the organizational hierarchy thrives the most.
Management delivers on promises
We've all experienced a lot of change over the past few years, and it's a turbulent landscape with countless layoffs. Employees are on edge. Following through on what is said deepens relationships, and when managers form healthy relationships with employees, they are more likely to be successful in conversations around burnout and disengagement.
Promotions are fair
Affinity bias can be rampant in workplaces, and numerous data point to an unequal playing field across demographics like race and gender. Research shows that women are 1.5x more likely to plan to leave their companies to advance than men. Yet, organizations that financially outperform industry competitors have more leadership diversity.
People are welcomed to new teams
First impressions are lasting ones, and they set the tone for everything that follows. Make on-boarding engaging and informative so it won't feel like a time waster. People also need to be put on new teams because they want to be there, not solely because it fits the business need. Coming back from vacation or parental leave and having a job change that you had no say in or oversight of is not only disrespectful but will also likely lead to disengagement.
If you're serious about building community, seek first to understand. Start by listening to the people in your community. Effective communication helps increase both motivation and morale. It ensures that everyone clearly understands their roles and expectations, which opens the door to productivity. If your team doesn't clearly understand what's in it for them, community buy-in will continue to be elusive. Your company's community's environment and "feel" impact the top line, bottom and everything in between.
