How’s your employee retention? Are your employees happy and fulfilled at work? If you answered “yes”, your job is to keep your employees happy. But, if you weren’t sure how your employees feel, you aren’t alone.
Although most employers strive to create fulfilling, satisfying workplaces, their efforts don’t always translate into those results. Part of the reason for this is that some of the efforts are misplaced and don’t result in improving areas that employees care the most about. Others get lost in translation.
For example, although most employers (as high as 80%+ in some surveys) report recognizing their employees, as must as 60% of employees state that they aren’t recognized regularly. Although the surveys don’t survey the same segments of the population, there is still a glaring difference between the efforts of employers and the way employees receive it.
A major reason for this difference comes down to connection at work. Connection at work enhances engagement, improves retention, creates emotional safety, improves performance, and affects customer satisfaction.
Seven Types of Employee Connections At Work
Although there are likely more connections we won’t cover in this article, there are seven critical connections that employees can gain at work that solidify their engagement.
1. Connection to Meaningful Work
Employees crave a connection to meaningful work. It’s important that 9 out of 10 employees are willing to take a pay cut. When employees feel that their work makes a difference, they take fewer sick days, are proud of where they work, and usually talk about their work to family and friends positively.
One of the ways employers can build connections is to share with employees how their work makes a difference. Even jobs usually considered menial can be made more meaningful when the employee understands their positive impact on their community through their work.
2. Connections in Personal Life
Workplaces that encourage meaningful connections in personal life and provide a healthy work-life balance create impactful connections to employees. The author has a family member who works six minutes from home. The ability to come home for lunch is so important to him that he doesn’t even consider looking for other jobs, even when competitors approach him with higher wages.
His specific workplace has created a deeper connection than other benefits because of the personal life connection he gets through them.
3. Connection to Collegues
During the Covid crisis, millions of employees worked from home, many longed to return to the office. One of the top reasons that a portion of the workforce wanted to return to the office was that it provided a way to hae effortless connections.
Employees’ connection with their colleagues doesn’t take planning, scheduling, or added effort. Many adults find it harder to build connections personally because of increasing commitments and the hectic pace of life. But, workplace connections happen with much less effort because employees are already together.
And the connections with their teammates is so strong that it keeps some employees at an employer they otherwise long to leave. The fear of letting their team down is one of the top reasons employees hesitate to leave.
4. Connection to Their Manager
A great manager builds one of the strongest connections between employees and their workplace. Good bosses decrease normal workday stresses, bring out the best in the individuals on their teams, and challenge employees to push themselves.
Managers set much of the team culture and can magnify the company culture. They help build connections among the team, their work, and the employer. That’s maybe why a bad manager is often the number one reason employees leave their job.
5. Connection to Themselves
When employees perform well in a job that meets their skill levels and challenges them a little, they feel a deeper connection to themselves and their confidence. The key to building this subtle and elusive connection is that employees should use their skills and not be in a job that doesn’t require their tablets or gifts. And the job should challenge them with enough challenges that the employee grows but doesn’t get overwhelmed or discouraged.
If you manage to place employees in the right positions for their talents and skills, their connection with themselves will grow as they feel pride in their work and the internal satisfaction of accomplishing and growing in their jobs.
6. Connection with their Future
Employees, especially Millenials, value jobs that connect them with their future. When employees see their current position as one that helps them to grow and their employer has opportunities they can move up in, they feel more connected to their future.
But, when employees feel that they are in a dead-end job or that there isn’t room for growth, they lose that connection and become more open to other opportunities. One study by CNBC found that 94% of employees looking to leave their employer would stay longer if they thought their employer was vesting in helping them learn.
7. Connection to Mentors
Employees feel a connection to mentors, and mentors don’t have to be their bosses. Mentors can be other colleagues, individuals from other departments, managers from other teams, or younger technology mentors.
Mentors help to alleviate workplace stress and help employees to see a larger picture. They guide employees toad greater vision and increased success. In fact, according to one study, 83% of Millennials with a mentor were satisfied with their job. That’s an incredible success rate!
Connection Creates Benefits That Are Hard to Find Elsewhere
When employees feel connected to their jobs with at least 3 connection points (such as manager, colleagues, and meaningful work), they feel greater resiliency to work stresses, increased motivation, and greater perseverance.
Connection fosters growth in happiness levels at work. Few employees experience flow unless they also feel a connection at work.
In a nutshell, connection cultivates:
- Decreased stress
- Increased engagement
- Higher performance
- Pride in the job
- Team comradery
- Greater motivation
- Resiliency
- Increased perseverance
- Higher levels of happiness
- More times of flow at work
Building Connections At Work
As a manager, there are many ways to foster greater connections at work. Recognition, conversations, and celebrations all build connections.
Recognition Builds Connections at Work on Many Levels
Regular recognition is an important aspect of building employee connections at work. Recognizing employees publicly and privately builds connections between you as the leader and the employee.
Recognition also helps to build connections between the employee and their performance. When employees excel and are recognized for it, they feel a greater connection to their sense of purpose and to the work they perform.
And peer recognition builds connections among teams and colleagues in a way few other things can. Recognition builds connections for both the recognizer and the recognizee. In fact, peer recognition is one of the most powerful ways to build connections at work.
Conversations Build Connection
You might sometimes believe that the conversations that happen around the office in the breakroom, the copy machine, or the water spout are idle conversations that don’t serve the workplace. But, often, these seemingly little conversations are the very motor that builds lasting connections among employees and creates inclusion and belonging.
Employees who have a few minutes to chat about something that isn’t a pressing work item build friendships and feel belonging. This sense of inclusion makes all the difference and can inspire employees while lacking it can demoralize them.
Celebrations Build Teams (And Connections)
When employees celebrate together, they build bonds that last through stressful projects and difficult challenges. It’s important that teams celebrate together to build a strong team. But, it’s also important that employees celebrate individual events also, including birthdays, births, marriages, graduations, and other major life events.
If your team doesn’t celebrate each other’s personal accomplishments or life decisions together, it can make the employee feel that their workmates don’t care about them outside of work. It can harm the existing work connections they feel with colleagues.
For more information about building connections at work, be sure to schedule a demo!
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.