If you want a high-functioning workforce, you need a relationship-centric focus as part of your employee engagement initiative. Employee relationships lead to behavior such as camaraderie and collaboration, and relationships with coworkers, managers, leaders and customers have a major effect on productivity, job satisfaction and company loyalty.
When employees feel connected – whether to the person sitting next to them or to team members thousands of miles away overseas – they will participate, they will be engaged, they will contribute in impactful and meaningful ways, and they’re more likely to stay an employee:
Relationships in the workplace are attributed to two primary factors – interaction and relatedness. This is to say, how often people connect and communicate and how much they have in common. If employees don’t have the opportunity to interact, they’re much less likely to discover commonality.
“When we establish human connections within the context of shared experience we create community wherever we go.” ~ Gina Greenlee, Author
Technology has enabled us to interact from anywhere in the world, but you can’t put a value on face-to-face interaction. The ROI on an investment bringing people together is immeasurable. Shared experiences augment communication, cultivate collaboration, create a solid foundation for relatedness and cement relationships.