Why do workspaces need a strong community
With the average working week consisting of 40 hours or more across the world, most of the working professionals spend more time in their workplaces than with their family.
Hence, they need to experience the same kind of community feeling and nurturing from their organization to keep them motivated.
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There are multiple benefits of building a community within your workspace—your employee loyalty will improve dramatically, communication issues and misunderstandings will go down and the general productivity of the office will witness an upward trend.
A strong work community can also create a sense of camaraderie which can make your employees and managers much more empathetic and understanding with each other as well as enhance the emotional quotient of the company.
Read this blog to explore the beneficial impact of community and within your organisation and different ways of doing it.
What are the benefits of strong community at a workplace?
Being a part of community groups at work can make you feel a part of something greater than yourself. Apart from receiving all the help and benefits yourself, you can also have the emotional satisfaction of being there for someone else. This feeling of togetherness can harness a huge amount of work satisfaction and contentment and reduce work-related stress.
In an age where technology both connects and separates us at work, a local community in your office space can provide you with the emotional and intellectual support you need as an employee. Members of your office community can be the source of sound wisdom and advice during challenging times. A strong community can also become a source of career growth and experience. Connecting with like-minded groups within the company can inspire you to take your career more seriously.
Like any other social group, a workspace community can also be beneficial for growing the personal and professional networks of each employee. In a close-knit office community, you can meet new people through your colleagues who may help you with your career or personally. Similarly, your colleagues would have access to your contacts which can benefit them in many ways.
Creating a strong community of empathetic, understanding and supportive employees looking out for each other can also lead to monumental and visible changes in company revenue or output. A sense of community creates a feeling of belonging—when employees feel that their organization is theirs, they elevate their productivity and dedication towards the betterment of the company.
Lastly, a strong work community can foster an environment of stability and security. While it is not possible to predict untoward incidents, simply sharing your negative feelings together as one big family can lessen the sting. You also feel secure in the knowledge that you can count on others even during personal emergencies.
How can you foster a community within your company?
Fostering a strong community at the workplace has been the priority for many human resource teams across organisations. Here are some creative ways to build an active community at your office.
- Work get-togethers: The easiest way to create a sense of community within a workplace is to create events outside it where people can relax and get to know each other. Work get-togethers on weekends like picnics, team dinners or lunches or even sporting events can help build bonds within the team and boost the morale of the employees.
- Corporate social responsibility ventures: Belief in the same cause can bring people closer very quickly. Arranging for volunteering initiatives for various social causes can help employees bond over their beliefs and sentiments. It can also enhance the image of your company as a socially responsible organisation.
- Encouragement of diverse perspectives: All of us want to be recognised and appreciated for our views and work for the company. Hence, organising brainstorming sessions within the teams or across the company can allow employees to speak their minds and feel more connected with the organisation. It can also bring in diverse ideas some of which can profit the company.
Community leadership discards the top-down approach of orders trickling down from the upper management. Instead, it adopts the age-old tradition of family or global community that encourages inclusivity in business decisions across all levels.
Although you may have the intent, it might take a lot of communication skills, empathy, tact, patience and vision to slowly start and grow a community within your company. One way of speeding up the process is to pursue a course in human resource management which can provide you with insights into human behaviour at workplaces and the role of community leadership.
The University of Law at GISMA Business School offers a M.Sc. in Leadership and Human Resource Management that can help you learn how to work and interact with different kinds of people in dynamic workspaces. This one-year programme offers a blended format of learning that allows students to learn from their home and travel to Germany to finish the programme.
Click here to learn more about the details of this course at GISMA.
– This article is written by Sweha Hazari