Fostering Connectedness in the Post-Pandemic Workplace
Sarah Larson
Talent Strategist, Organizational Thought Leadership, Independent Consulting
Even before COVID-19 was a household name, power in the workplace was quietly shifting from corporations to employees. Employee needs and desires have also shifted as well.
Post-pandemic, employees want to be viewed as more than a worker with a resume. They are whole people with distinct human needs, and they want their employers to acknowledge this. Our employee value propositions (EVPs) were designed to deliver value that matched the needs employees had before the pandemic. And they are quickly becoming irrelevant.
Now, we need to radically transform our EVPs. Incremental changes won't cut it. The new EVP must move beyond features employees get at work to deliver on the needs and feelings employees want to have about their work. These are needs that reach beyond the four walls of the corporate office.
The only way to attract the best talent and see an increase in engagement, performance, and retention is to evolve our EVPs and set out on the ROAD to deliver a more human deal centered around the wants and needs of employees as humans.
The ROAD: Four big human needs
So what human needs do organizations need to address in their EVP? The research is quite conclusive on four big needs:
R.
Recognition - Employees want to be valued for their efforts and achievements. Businesses must recognize them to motivate them to engage, perform and stay.
O.
Options - To answer the workforce’s desire for autonomy, companies must offer employees options and allow them to make choices within boundaries that protect productivity and corporate goals.
A.
Affinity - Workers are feeling the loss of the office as a social hub. They need to reclaim meaningful connections. Organizations need to offer ways to connect with the company, society and the most important people in their lives.
D.
Development - With mental health issues and financial hardship on the rise, employees care about more than just developing their professional skills. They want to develop personal skills to address their whole-person needs. Organizations must invest in developing employees as people, not just professionals.
This is the ROAD: a map to creating employee value based on meeting human needs post pandemic.
In this post, we are going to examine the third strategy on the ROAD: Affinity. We will discuss how organizations can meet employees’ need for connection by fostering affinity to people and purpose.
Behind the Need for Connection
Before the pandemic, we had our work lives, and then we had the rest of our lives. Our work lives were a central organizating structure in our lives set in offices where we had work friends and even “work spouses.” We treated work as something separate from our lives outside of work.
We didn’t realize it then, but work was a social hub. It offered human connection that happened naturally throughout the day. We felt connected when we high-fived a buddy while passing in the hallway, shared a conversation in the kitchen, or enjoyed a coffee break with a coworker. And we took that feeling entirely for granted.
After all, it had always been there. We had no idea it would ever be yanked away due to a public health crisis.
Now, many employees find themselves bereft, especially those who thrived socially in the corporate workplace. You’ve heard of the Great Resignation—we’re also in the Great Disconnection. Many employees are feeling disconnected, isolated and lonely in the shift to remote practices. In fact, when the Pew Research Center surveyed workers in late 2020, 65% said they felt less connected to their company and colleagues.
As we come to terms with what we’ve lost, we’re looking for new approaches to build connection and a sense of belonging in companies. But recreating those spontaneous moments of human connection has proven elusive in our remote and hybrid work environments. We’ve got our work cut out for us.
The Way Forward on the Road: Foster Affinity with Purpose and People to Boost Your EVP
The notion that work is a social hub is eroding in companies that have gone fully remote or hybrid. But employers can and should foster affinity by supporting the connections that are still possible. Organizations can also offer avenues for employees to participate in civic life, community life, family life, or other arenas meaningful to them. These avenues will connect employees to a larger purpose, and to their most important people (MIPs).
Connection With a Meaningful Purpose
Organizations that thrived during the pandemic kept their employees connected to a meaningful purpose through a shared mission, organizational values, pledges or societal causes. Atlassian is one example—we directly responded to all the pressing issues of the day, including climate change, the Black Lives Matter movement, flooding in Australia, the war in Ukraine. And our employees were grateful to work for such a principled and humanistic company. It reinforced a sense of loyalty and belonging.
Atlassian’s experience demonstrates that companies have to find ways to win the hearts and minds of employees by connecting them to a larger purpose that transcends corporate goals and customer objectives.
Connections with People
Connections have always been important. A 2019 survey by The Institute of Leadership and Management found that 77% of respondents cited close relationships with colleagues as one of the most important factors in determining job satisfaction. Salary was eighth on the list.
But affinity with colleagues isn’t the only connection employees yearn for. They also want to connect with a broader social support network. Some 68% respondents in Gartner’s 2021 EVP Employee Survey said it is important for their organization to understand and share in helping them connect with their family. About 62% said the same about their community.
The Benefits of Fostering Affinity
Organizations that deliver deeper connections see a 28% increase in the percentage of employees who are likely to recommend the company. Employees who experience high levels of belonging perform better, take fewer sick days and are more likely to stay with a company. Added together, these factors result in an annual savings of $52 million for a 10,000-person company.
Gallup reports that only 20% of U.S. employees have a best friend at work. But if employers could triple that ratio to six in 10, they would enjoy 36% fewer safety incidents, 7% more engaged customers and a 12% higher profit.. The Gartner survey found that, when employees enjoy deeper connections at work, they are 14% more likely to feel that their employer understands what they need at work and 17% more likely to feel that their employer understands what they need in their personal life.
Fostering affinity has clear benefits, but it’s so outside the traditional EVP that it can be hard to decide where to start. Here are a few practical tips to help you boost your EVP by addressing your employees’ desire for connection.
How to Foster Affinity
Encourage affinity with a purpose: Corporate purpose isn’t enough. The new, human-centered EVP must include affinity with societal purpose.
When I was vice president of talent at Atlassian, we assembled a cross-functional team to create a protocol governing company action on societal issues. The team, which consisted of employees across levels, business units and functions, identified principles for when to take action on a societal issue versus when not to act. This made decision-making easy and consistent in the future.
We also allowed and encouraged employees to take five paid days each financial year to volunteer or connect in some way to the core purpose of the company or societal causes the company supported. Thanks to this policy, Atlassian employees put their professional skills to work volunteering for charities and non-profits.
Facilitate connection with MIPs: These can include managers and peers at work as well as family and friends. Think outside the box to help enable and support relationships that exist outside of the workplace.
Atlassian sent employees home with ice cream social kits and movie projectors to host movie nights with friends and family.
Create opportunities for workplace connections: Make time for connection at work by introducing regularly scheduled rituals. Harvard Business Review suggests these:
Start the week with Gratitude Mondays, where employees share something they are grateful for with their colleagues.
Wrap up the work week with Storytelling Fridays. In these sessions, an employee can share a personal story and invite colleagues to ask questions about it. Getting to know one another builds compassion and empathy, which are great building blocks for connections.
Rethink the offsite: We need to radically rethink how we approach team offsites. Today’s offsites will serve a different purpose than their pre-COVID predecessors. They need to strengthen our bonds and reinforce our culture. We need to come together to connect, forge trust, get inspired, give back to the community, and experience collective joy. So ditch the strategic planning offsite of yesteryear and hire an experienced facilitator to help create something more powerful and transformational.
Our EVPs must address the human need for connection in order to engage, attract and retain top talent. By fostering affinity for people and purpose, we can help our employees regain the connections they lost during the pandemic and reap the associated benefits for our businesses.
Learn more about the other steps on the ROAD: Recognition, Options, and Development.
Learn more about the changes to the workplace and the ROAD to retention and engagement.