The last ten months have witnessed a fundamental re-appraisal of our view of what community entails. Up to the middle of March last year, we came across community in so many guises. We observed and were part of communities within schools – as either pupils or fellow parents. Sports of all shapes and sizes create passionate communities around them. Culture, the arts, interest groups, hobbies, we pursue not only as a result of our love for them, but also because of our ability to form shared experiences, feelings and sentiments. The sense of emotion when we witness achievement, beauty and expertise is amplified infinitely when done so within a community of like minds.
We have only to witness the often hollow, two-dimensional feeling of, for example, sport being played to an empty, unreceptive house to understand that we yearn for such community – and, synergistically, that sport, art, the theatre equally need that same sense of participation and involvement.
There have clearly been efforts to replace such communities via the likes of Zoom, but these efforts can feel as ineffective, inconsistent and intermittent as the wifi that supports such platforms.
Even our ultimate community, the family, has been reduced to a very limited bubble, often to the exclusion of those with whom we have shared much of life’s journey.
And the workplace is no exception to this dissipation of community.
We come, or rather came, to work to collaborate, to argue, to discuss, to laugh, to shout, to belong. It’s at work we’re exasperated, irritated, elated, enthused, engaged, inspired.
“I don’t think we’ve realised how valuable the workplace was in this regard. There are hidden consequences of not having the opportunity to work face-to-face – a loss in confidence, potential increases in paranoia, people questioning their competence, old demons re-appearing”. Catherine Schlieben, HR Director – Talent, National Grid.
It’s at work, we’re together. As a community.
Clearly, in March last year, that ceased to be the case for the great majority of us.
However, with significant progress already being made with vaccinations rates, some form of return to the workplace is now more realistic than it has been since the virus originally descended upon us.
Whatever our wishes, such a return will not happen overnight and it will be cautious and incremental. The return, however, of workplace communities may take even longer.
With entirely understandable issues such as fear and wariness, four figure daily death headlines, a desire to continue working from home and a potential mental health pandemic preventing the re-creation of community, this is far from straightforward. And if we also factor in the point that working from home means potentially hiring from anywhere, then the binds of community become even weaker. What, then, can we do to address this?
The physical element of the workplace is of huge importance. Whatever our misgivings about the likes of Skype and Zoom, they have enabled us a closer, more personal insight into our colleagues. We’ve got to know their home, their partner, their pets, their children, their lives.
Do we really want to return to an impersonal workplace characterised by face masks, hand sanitisers, designated lunch breaks and one-way systems? Modern workplaces have been created to encouraged impromptu meetings and interactions – exactly what we’ve spent the past ten months avoiding. People want the opportunity to collaborate, to co-create, to come together – but tomorrow’s workplaces need to encourage just that whilst being mindful of people’s fears and concerns.
“It’s now close to twelve months since people left their offices and for many, the novelty of working from home has faded and the lack of team/office interaction has taken its toll. Yet it would appear that many have no intention of returning to the office, or indeed the daily commute full time.
The last twelve months have fast-tracked many changes which you could see coming down the line, but one is a clear shift to hybrid working solutions, with employers being able to reduce the reliance on their own office locations, as well as offering employees the ability to blend working from home with time in various office locations. It’s going to be interesting to see how organisations deal with this transition and shift in working culture”. Craig Morgans, Global Head of Talent Acquisition, IWG plc.
I’d suggest the key aspect they have to offer is space. Space within which people feel safe and Covid-free. A space away from the home they have probably seen a little too much of. But a space in which they can engage more naturally and constructively with their co-workers than has been the case for perhaps ten months.
“We cannot return to row upon row of desks and computers – we can sit at a computer at home. The key to providing a working environment that is both safe and productive is space. And space that enables employees to interact naturally and informally”. Catherine Schlieben.
This feels like a big moment for the physical workplace. Is this about a quiet, unheralded return to normal or a chance to be truly disruptive and re-shape the workplace?
If the physical landscape is important in breathing a sense of community back into the workplace, so then is the digital landscape.
We are likely to see a blended return to the workplace. There may be shift systems. Some people will continue to work from home permanently. Others will split their time between home and office.
The key for digital professionals is to ensure there are both business systems and internal communication infrastructures in place to ensure that such a blended workforce feels in touch and online wherever they are, whenever they need to be. The range of internal communications platforms offered by many firms is often in place through default rather than strategic planning. A new platform, Yammer perhaps, is simply added to the existing internal communication channels, with insufficient thought given to what is effective and what is increasingly redundant.
We have seen lockdown prompt a huge increase in the take up of social communities such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook – the number of Twitter users increased by 34% in 2020’s second quarter, its fastest rise since the platform first started using this metric in 2016. In place of physical communities, people have sought solace and company in social environments. It may well be that as and when a significant return to offices and workplaces takes hold, that people want the comfort of employer-based social communication platforms.
“I agree to a point, but these have to be managed. I’ve seen examples where such platforms become a distraction and a source of angst – bad news, bad attitudes, something else to add to the pressure all around us”. Catherine Schlieben.
Information technology has a huge opportunity to help bring people, wherever they are, together. To collaborate, to re-shape, to re-engineer. Such re-shaping should also facilitate the internal telling and sharing of employee stories – the stories of how people came through lockdown and how they were helped and supported by their employer.
This sense of re-creating communities will put huge pressure on cultural norms. With the changes that both organisations and employees have gone through over the past ten months, yesterday’s cultural behaviours are unlikely to resonate today and won’t point towards tomorrow. We’ve seen the impact of #MeToo, #BeKind and BLM and we’ve seen what good corporate and leadership behaviours look like – and their polar opposites. For many employers and employees alike, lockdown has represented a hard stop. There is, therefore, an expectation that people will return expecting more and better from their organisation and from their colleagues.
“We need more authenticity and also a move away from a working environment that appears to listen to its people but then continually ramps up expectations and demands. Where is the real empathy and action to change working patterns and more importantly cultures?” Catherine Schlieben.
“The future role of the Manager is going to be much more people focused. Where once you were making sure your introverts felt included, now it can be more about checking on your extroverts – who can quickly find their mood depleted without colleagues to bounce off. The psychology of human behaviour will need to be understood to a much greater extent and managers will need to be more nuanced and empathetic than ever before”. Adele Swift, National Recruitment Manager, Handepay.
“I am convinced that 2020 made us stop the treadmill and take stock. And whilst our freedoms were taken away overnight, we also took back ownership of our time and purpose. We slowed down and realised that time and connection to others, were far more valuable than material things. As we evolve into a new normal, candidates and employees will want something even more meaningful, and will connect to companies who show purpose, authenticity and a genuine care for their employees’ time”. Phil Catcheside, Head of Recruitment Marketing and Engagement, Network Rail.
“There is no going back to the old normal. There is not even a single new normal. Employees have experienced and enjoyed freedoms, empowerment, home working, trust. These things cannot be unlearned. The future of the workplace suddenly looks very different. Employees expect to have choice; home or remote working perhaps 60-70% of the week; collaborative working f2f for the remaining 30-40%. But that in itself raises issues of equity with shift or frontline workers who cannot do the majority of their roles offsite”. Sandy Wilkie, Head of Organisational Effectiveness, Greenhill HR
How tomorrow’s organisational cultures go to create employee communities which blend a greater sense of kindness, reassurance and empathy, with the encouragement to disrupt, re-engineer and re-invent will be fascinating.
Driving such cultural change and employee togetherness has to be people messaging that facilitates a greater sense of community. People messaging which references what has happened, how the employee base has got through this together, but which focuses on the future. People messaging which highlights a unified purpose, common goals and togetherness, even if those people are not necessarily together. A (workforce) community needs to understand where it is heading and how its efforts can help it get there.
“Remote working has become the norm where once it was a unique proposition for the forward-thinking employer. In such cases, those organisations have to be mindful of moving on their EVP. The same thing applies, for example, to those organisations that marketed themselves as a work hard, play hard culture – nobody gets to play anymore!
Employers must learn to evolve quickly, based on insight and knowledge, if they wish to continue to appeal, bending and shaping their employer proposition to fit the new world”. Adele Swift.
I’d anticipate too that organisations will be enhancing internal communities by encouraging activities which, for example, benefit external communities. Whether that relates to food banks, local charities, mentoring or outreach work, building external communities can only help build internal communities.
The ways in which talent acquisition engages with external candidate communities will be critical too to forging more effective internal employee communities. How should recruiters reach out in a world where a relatively post-Covid landscape looks a real possibility? Clearly, thought should be given to the employer brand an organisation wishes to bring to market. Is it still relevant, is it still reflective of an organisation, is it still future facing, is it still compelling, is it still true to the times we’re living in? And the Employee Value Proposition your organisation is working with, does it point the way forward or backwards? Will it help forge the culture you are looking for and help build stronger internal communities. Will it help hire the individuals that will make you more whole?
(This point is increasingly important in light of the news that 41% of employers are seeking to construct a new EVP, according to research this month from Aon Consulting).
I’d also envisage organisations making a determined effort to create internal employee groups which bridge departments or locations. Such groups might focus on those people who have suffered bereavements during Covid, or those people who are carers, those who are home schooling, those people who want to up their exercise quota post lockdown, those who are concerned about their mental health or those who want to improve their nutrition. It will be interesting, too, to see if employers encourage their people to take their lunch on the premises, both to reignite community but also to avoid too much mixing outside the office.
One final thought. People desperately crave community. To have a shared goal and purpose. They want people around them, either physically or digitally. What I think employers need to do in order to rebuild talent communities is to draw a line in the organisational sand. To produce a people commitment statement. To communicate their appreciation of what people have been through and the commitment they have made. To recognise people’s efforts in emerging out the other side. To outline where the organisation is heading and the help they will need from the employee community to get there. To perhaps outline some enhancements to the benefits package – greater mental health provision, time off for caring or bereavement reasons, additional well-being investment, for example.
“We cannot go back to the past, we have to embrace the future. One where the employer-employee relationship (psychological contract) is re-negotiated. We need to get our staff involved in co-creating the future of work and the future configuration of workplaces”. Sandy Wilkie.
As we might observe across the other side of the Atlantic, this is the opportunity to heal, to unite, to reassure, to come together. Work has the opportunity, and the obligation, to create communities which acknowledge what we have all been through, whilst providing the environment to deliver effective, empathetic tomorrows.
Getting to the heart of your employee mindset 