Connection increases employee engagement exponentially. Usually, when managers think about connection, they picture the bonds that employees form with their teams and managers. But, a connection is deeper and encompasses many various aspects of work.
Let’s dive into the six critical connections that keep employees with a particular employer.
Connection to Meaningful Work
It’s critical that employees feel a connection to their work. In this study, 9 out of 10 workers found meaningful work so critical that they said they’d give up part of their paycheck for the opportunity to do it.
Employees who find their work meaningful work, on average, an extra hour a week and take two fewer days of sick leave each year. Employees who feel they have meaningful work are more likely to recommend their employer, more loyal, and more engaged (study).
Help employees to find the meaning behind what they do at work. Storytelling (link) creates the visual image of the good of an organization. If you have them, showcase clients that were impacted by your specific employees (even if not directly). An R&D or assembly line employee impacts the employee who buys that product.
While you are at it, don’t neglect to communicate the company’s vision and mission statement. Many millennials see corporations as entities whose sole purpose is profit. This may come from the quarterly focus on earnings. Let the mission statement be the focus. Let’s look at a few examples:
P&G’s: “To improve the lives of the world’s consumers.”
Hyatt’s: “To provide authentic hospitality by making a difference in the lives of people we touch every day.”
Walmart: “To save people money so they can live better.”
CocaCola’s: “To inspire moments of optimism and happiness”
Philips: “Improving people’s lives through meaningful innovation.”
Mission statements provide the meaning behind corporate goals and individual job titles. When employees know that what they do makes a difference to their communities and those around them, work is meaningful.
Connection to The Employer
Meaningful work is important to employees. Post-Covid, McKinsey & Company found that two-thirds of people were reevaluating the purpose of their life. “Nearly half said that they are reconsidering the kind of work they do because of the pandemic.”
More than ever, employees value and search for meaningful work. It’s critical that employers provide meaningful work. And, unless work involves lowering quality of life, dealing drugs, or debasing people (we’re guessing it doesn’t), most employers help the community in some manner.
The key is communicating how you make life better and how you enrich communities around you. This transition between what your employees do and how the company provides goods and services may seem obvious to managers.
But, employees often fail to make those connections. It’s critical that employers communicate how they help the communities around them. This is done several ways:
- Share individual examples of the company’s impact
- Communicate the vision and goals of the organization
- Highlight good citizen decisions and charitable giving
Use testimonials from clients and buyers to show how the product or service impacts the lives of those it serves. Some of these stories will demonstrate, better than any fictional account, the impact of the company.
But employer connection isn’t just about mission statement and purpose. It also includes how the employer affects the employee’s personal connections
Work Enables Better Connection In Personal Life
Today’s employees care about their work/life balance. After experiencing remote or hybrid work models for the last 1-2 years, many employees are reluctant to go back to work full time (article link).
After the initial stress and turbulence of working from home, they’ve adjusted. In fact, employee engagement levels, amidst rising Covid rates, peaked at a record high of 40% in January 2020. Despite employees feeling more isolated from colleagues, they were more engaged than previous to Covid.
One major contributor to that lies in the ability to better balance work and personal life. While employees initially struggled to have a clear boundary between home and work-from-home life, many have adjusted.
Now, the benefits of no commute, the ability to pause for a moment to taxi a child to school, eat breakfast with the family, or the luxury to work from an impromptu vacation, have allowed employees to increase personal connections because of work changes.
Employers with the flexibility for employees to build these connections increase the connections the employees feel to the employer. According to Gallup, 44% of workers prefer working from home.
Remote work and/or flexible hours now tops the most important benefits an employer can offer. But, don’t think that employees want full-time remote work. The same survey found that 39% of fully-remote workers wanted to return to the office at least part of the time.
Connection to Colleagues
Do you know one of the greatest reasons people want to return to the office? One Psychologist named several reasons. The top reason: effortless connection. Work provides a way to connect and communicate with others. It provides a melting pot of ideas.
And, teams form workplace culture. Even within a single company, individual teams create various cultures. While one team may be creative, unified, and eager for challenges, another team may grow uncertainty, fear, and withdrawal from team members.
But, connection to one’s colleagues and teammates is powerful. Fear of letting down one’s team is one of the top fears employees face. Employees care about their coworkers and that connection leads them to engage so they don’t let others down.
Gallup ranks employees’ connections to colleagues with their question “I have a best friend at work” and rates it among the top factors in employee loyalty and happiness. Although loyalty to the employer is important, loyalty to the team can be even stronger in some cases.
Encourage team comadare by recognizing team effort and encouraging collaboration. That “wasted time” at the water cooler isn’t always wasted. It helps create bonds between coworkers. Celebrating holidays, special occasions, and team accomplishments help to build bonds and connection within teams. Check out 5 important tools to building effective teams.
And, incase you think that teams are only built in person, check out 5 steps to building a sense of team among remote workers and Getting to know you questions for remote teams, staff, and workers.
Connection To Mentors
Another important connection that employees build is between mentor and mentee. Mentors help to alleviate work stress, provide greater vision, and guide employees to greater success. Mentoring helps employees to avoid burnout.
Millennials leave jobs faster than any other previous generation. But, according to Deloit, 83% of millennials with a mentor are satisfied with their work-life. The mentor connection is powerful.
If you aren’t sure where to start, check out 8 reasons your company needs a mentoring program. Get started with 10 steps to a successful mentoring program. Mentees aren’t the only ones that benefit. Mentors also benefit from the increased connection, sense of purpose, and ability to make a difference.
Connection To the Boss
A bad boss is a reason many people give for leaving a job. “People don’t leave companies, they leave bad bosses” is the subject of many headlines and studies. Bad bosses have a negative impact on retention (link to the previous article that outlines connection).
But, good bosses have an astounding influence for good on employees. Managers function as mentors, helping guide employees into job growth. They provide challenges that keep employees engaged and allow the autonomy employees crave so badly.
A recent study found that bosses decrease pandemic-related stress in their employees. These bosses have the ability to help employees find meaning by channeling anxiety into service. Those with supportive bosses were more likely to contribute to their community. They reported less anxiety, even after reading about the effects of Covid-19.
Managers set the tone of the team. They exemplify trust in their team. They create a safe space for employees to discuss their challenges and receive support. Although employees leave bad bosses, they also stay because of good managers.
Connection to Their Future
Employees value the connection to their future. Millennials value job growth. In a CNBC report, 80% of workers who were considering leaving their jobs were doing so because they are concerned about their career advancement. They want career growth and greater flexibility.
And this study found that 94% of employees would stay at their job longer if their employer was invested in helping them learn.
The desire for work to connect employees with their future dreams and goals is one reason why work anniversaries are a key time period when people leave their jobs. It causes them to reflect on whether or not their job is connecting them to their future (SHRM).
Provide employees with growth and they’ll be more engaged and stay longer. You can do this through mentoring, job training, and other growth opportunities (see 11 ways to invest in employees).
Connection To Themselves Through Work
Employees value the connection they feel to themselves when they are working. Connection to self is usually felt when employees can use their personal talents and gifts in their job. When their personal goals align with the purpose of their job.
Help employees to feel a greater connection to themselves at work by knowing your team well enough to know their individual strengths and talents. Challenge the individuals on your team in ways that develop their gifts and help them to grow as a person.
Helping employees to grow that connection is critical. You can gauge the strength of your employee’s connection to themselves through their work by measuring flow (link to article). The O.C. Tanner culture report demonstrates how employers can help create these peak experiences (link to article).
Conclusion
Connection is critical to employee engagement, loyalty, and performance. But, one thing makes the difference. Check out the second article in this series to find out singe thing you can do to help employees connect and increase engagement. (Link to next article on how to build connections at work vía recognition article).
About Thanks
Thanks is a leading provider of a recognition-based platform that increases communication, builds teamwork, and makes recognition a part of company culture. Fast, easy and simple Thanks makes it easy to bring data-driven employee recognition to your entire organization. O.C. Tanner purchased the Thanks platform in 2019 to fulfill the recognition needs of smaller businesses.
Thanks customers benefit from the same decades of research in employee motivation and company culture that O.C. Tanner enterprise clients enjoy, but in a product that is geared for fast, easy and simple deployment. Whether you’re starting a recognition program or improving and expanding on what you already have, Thanks has everything you need to engage your people with effective, scalable recognition.