“You BELONG.” – Why is it important to build a healthy culture of community in the workplace? [Fridays: Mindfulness by Miles]
Miles Everson’s Business Builder Daily speaks to the heart of what great marketers, business leaders, and other professionals need to succeed in advertising, communications, managing their investments, career strategy, and more.
A Note from Miles Everson:
Hello, everyone. Welcome to “Mindfulness by Miles!”
Today, we’ll be sharing some key points I discussed in a webinar MBO Partners conducted in May 2021.
The main topic of the event was about creating a culture of community to serve future workforce needs. It was such an honor to speak with top industry professionals in the webinar and learn from their insights.
You may listen to the recording and view the transcript of our discussion here.
We also encourage you to read the article below. We’ll discuss a few insights about building strong communities in the workplace.
Miles Everson
CEO, MBO Partners
Chairman of the Advisory Board, The I Institute
Mindfulness by Miles
Diversity is an important aspect in today’s business world, but it’s not enough to simply hire people with different nationalities, backgrounds, or gender.
Everyone needs to FEEL welcome, safe, and free to be themselves in the workplace.
In fact, if companies focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in their offices and work culture, their entire business and processes will flourish.
Photo from Inc.com
On May 13, 2021, MBO Partners conducted a webinar titled, “Creating a Culture of Community to Serve Future Workforce Needs.”
In this event, MBO Partners CEO Miles Everson, The Freelance Conference Founder Emily Leach, FinancialForce Director of Online Customer Experience and Community Maria Ogneva, and Community5 Founder Jake McKee discussed how having a community that recognizes talent and makes people feel comfortable is something companies should advocate for.
They also talked about how the COVID-19 pandemic is detrimental to face-to-face communities and conferences. Because of this, the need for an individual’s sense of belongingness birthed the creation of communities within their own independent workforce.
Before we dive deeper into this topic, let’s first discuss why community matters in an organization…
According to a 2020 study from the Kenzie Academy, most professionals spend a third of their lives at work. That’s why it’s only natural to want to be in a workplace that is supportive, inspiring, and positive.
Besides, community is one of the major factors that contribute to a successful organization. It helps further the mission of the company and makes employees believe they can have more fulfilling careers and personal lives.
Here are 2 reasons why firms should advocate for a sense of community in the workplace:
- It creates a sense of belonging. In an organization with a strong sense of community, workers won’t wonder if they’re just filling a seat or acting as a cog in the machine. They’ll know their value, and will feel seen and heard as human beings.
- It fosters transparency and reduces isolation. Henry Mintzberg, a business and management academic and author, wrote a Harvard Business Review article about rebuilding companies as communities. He said:
“Many executives adopted what has become a pervasive style of ‘leadership’ in America. They sat in their offices and announced the goals they wanted others to attain, instead of getting on the ground and helping improve performance. Executives didn’t know what was going on, and employees didn’t care what went on. What a monumental failure of management.”
What does this statement imply?
If hierarchical separation exists between varying levels of a company, there will be some employees who’ll feel disconnected from the organization and their work. When this disconnect exists, people are less likely to care.
On the other hand, a healthy workplace prioritizes community-building through embedding transparency and belonging into the fabric of its culture.
Going back to MBO Partners’ webinar…
Everson says at MBO, they’re connecting and engaging independents to help them make their livelihood… and while they are called “independents,” he thinks the second most important thing to these professionals is to have some sense of community.
He states independent contractors can sometimes feel lonely because they don’t have a structured community around them, unlike full-time employees.
That’s why for Everson, it’s important for companies to help fill that gap, especially when hiring independents on a project-based setup.
Everson, Leach, Ogneva, and McKee also talked about the difference between cohort and community. They said a cohort is simply a group of people with common characteristics and interests.
Meanwhile, a community is a place where people feel they truly belong and care for each other. Here, businesses perform well not only in terms of statistics, numbers, sales, etc. but also in terms of engagement, relationships, and trust.
The problem comes when some companies are unwilling to sacrifice convenience for the sake of building a strong community. Since community-building is hard, expensive, and time-consuming, some management teams just settle for the cohort level.
However, that’s not what leads firms to true success.
To achieve both organizational and personal goals, management teams need to design their employees’ journey and experiences around a sense of purpose and belonging.
Think about Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs framework…
By understanding individuals’ need for love and belonging, firms will understand the significance of building a community where employees truly feel involved. This could also lead to self-actualization, or people’s desire to become the best they can be.
We hope you enjoyed and learned a lot from today’s topic!
Remember: Employees not only work at a company to make a living. They’re there for the community as well. If they don’t feel that sense of belonging in the workplace, they’ll eventually leave.
On the other hand, if they feel like they have an important role to play as a member of a firm and they’re treated as human beings and not robots, they’ll not only enjoy working at that company but also contribute to the business’ success.
Have a great day ahead!
(This article is from The Business Builder Daily, a newsletter by The I Institute in collaboration with MBO Partners.)
About The Dynamic Marketing Communiqué’s
“Fridays: Mindfulness by Miles”
High-performance businesses are run by people who think and act differently.
In other words, these are people who are high-performing individuals.
Companies and individuals of this kind have found ways to escape the grind of commoditization and competition by focusing on the RIGHT goals.
High-performing businesses and individuals are also “return driven” businesses and “career driven” individuals. They conscientiously develop unique capabilities and resources that allow them to deliver offerings in ways no other firm or individual can.
Every Friday, we’ll publish tips and insights from MBO Partners and The I Institute’s “The Business Builder Daily” newsletter.
These will help you gain knowledge on the things that Miles Everson, the CEO of MBO Partners, often talks about regarding the future of the workforce.
We’ll also highlight other mindfulness advice on how you can be a high-performing individual both in your career and personal life.
Hope you’ve found this week’s insight interesting and helpful.
Stay tuned for next Friday’s “Mindfulness by Miles!”
Cheers,
Kyle Yu
Head of Marketing
Valens Dynamic Marketing Capabilities
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