Community at work, part 1 — the traditional workplace

In ten years of writing this column, I have often talked about the importance of community at work… a lot (“Make your workplace spirits bright all year long,” Dec. 17, 2013;

“Are you building community at work?” Nov.

21, 2017; “Manage with a heart in ways that feed the spirit,” Jan. 14, 2019; and, “Connecting with colleagues,” June 15, 2021).

Today’s lesson focuses on community at work, albeit a bit differently. As we know, the pandemic has permanently altered the way we work; specifically, where we work: onsite, remotely or a combination of the two. While that may make community at work more challenging to achieve, it makes it no less important. In fact, I think it’s more important than ever that it is a workplace priority.

Community at work

Before we get to today’s lesson, let’s briefly review what we know:

• 2013 Gallup research showed that 70% of Americans either hate work or are completely disengaged because they are dissatisfied, angry or bored, and perks don’t help.

• Their “disengagement” costs companies and the U.S. billions and billions of dollars each year in lost productivity, employee theft, and absenteeism.

• Rather than improving, the failure to re-engage employees, along with fear from COVID, has led employees to take action and quit, the movement that’s become known as the Great Resignation. An Oct. 21, 2021 article in FastCompany reported

“Workhuman’s research surveyed employees in the U.S., UK, Ireland, and Canada and found that nearly 40% are planning to look for a new job in the next 12 months” — up from 21% in 2019.

• And, yes, the costs are even greater! RandStad RiseSmart shared the insights from a survey by Predictive Index (2022 Report on The State of Talent Optimization), that the average cost of a single resignation is now approximately $11,372 per employee. The Predictive Index reports that “1 in 5 workers quit in the last 6 months.” And, this is across all industries surveyed. That’s a lot of money wasted!

So, how do we stop the proverbial “disengagement cancer” and reverse this decimating business trend?

In previous lessons we learned that creating “community at work” is actually caring about one another, not in a BFF or noseyneighbor way, but in an authentic way that one cares about another human being with whom we daily work side by side toward common goals. The type of care that in its best moments looks