Belonging: How much fun do I have at work?

Have you tended to your team today?

We’ve launched a conversation about what leaders of organizations and teams can focus on to make their employees happier, following Maslow’s hierarchy of needs because it reflects the different ways we all look for satisfaction and reward in our jobs.  Now we’ve come to the midpoint of the pyramid, the need for love and belonging.

Work is where most of us as adults spend the bulk of our waking hours with other people.  In early adulthood we spend more time with our coworkers than we do with anyone else, including our friends; and from roughly age 30 to retirement, we spend as much time with them as we do with our partners.

Clearly, it matters profoundly to our social and emotional health whether we feel like we belong when we’re at work.  At INCITE, we believe there are two critical ways organizations support connection and a sense of belonging through their culture:  in encouraging healthy team dynamics, and in promoting inclusion.

It’s one thing to put a team together, it’s another to make it work.  On a high performing team people feel a sense of excitement and belonging; on a low-performing team, there’s a lack of harmony, probably too much unhealthy conflict, and not nearly enough fun.  According to psychologist Bruce Tuckman, there are four stages of team development:  forming, storming, norming, and performing.  Not all teams reach the “performing” stage.  Some get stuck in an earlier phase or struggle to pass through.  But to attain a high level of performance, teams must be able to communicate openly, build trust, surface and resolve tension, and fully align on the group objective.  Those things don’t always happen organically.  The organization that makes a point of encouraging vulnerability, dissent, and assuming best intentions, and whose leaders model psychological safety, will have the best chance of creating teams where people experience belonging.

Flipping the team dynamics coin, do your people feel they’re welcome as they are, or that they have to assume a façade?  Do they feel like they’re “part of the team”? Inclusion means recognizing different identities, experiences, and perspectives.  It means believing they have something to contribute to the team and something to contribute to the solution.  Inclusion can’t be passive:  we need to actively demonstrate it.  When we do, and when people can bring their “whole selves” to work, they feel they can belong.

And how many of your people have a “work buddy”? Gallup reports that only 2 in 10 people have a work “best friend” and that having a “best friend” makes you more than 7x likely to be engaged at work. Do you have a BFF at work?

With hybrid and virtual, staying engaged and involved can be more challenging. While there are benefits to work-from-home, it can also be isolating. No water cooler or chatting over the cubical farm walls. How do you encourage fun-at-work and meaningful connections? There’s no magic fairy dust, but really, this is something where “the effort counts.” Start off your meetings with ten minutes of chat, or be more directive – ask people to bring a picture, or share their next vacation spot. At INCITE, we’ve started having a pre-volunteered team member share “something interesting” every week – work or personal, and we’ve been learning about each other AND the work we’re doing. Or you could just ask your team for ideas!

We do more and more of our work in teams.  That’s especially true in behavioral healthcare – and it’s imperative, when our clients’ challenges are impacted by medical, social, and emotional factors, so let’s spend a little time growing and tending them.  We need everyone’s input, and we need successful teamwork and communication to bring together the solutions that our clients deserve.