When your employees feel they’re part of a community, you see a happier, healthier, more engaged workforce—and a better bottom line. And right now, building community in the workplace is critical as we adjust to a new, hybrid world of work. If you’ve been wondering how to build a sense of community in your workplace, check out the ideas below.
We tend to think of “community” as the place where we live. But workplaces are a type of community, too. The degree to which employees feel valued, connected, and fulfilled in that community has important implications for both the organizational culture and the business’s health. Before we get into how to build a sense of community at work, we’ll explore why community matters in the workplace and discuss the benefits of nurturing a sense of community.
Feeling disconnected from coworkers? Wish your workplace felt more like a community? You’re not alone. With remote work becoming more common and many employees feeling isolated, building community at work is more important than ever.
Strong communities create happier more engaged employees. When people feel like they belong and have mutual care and concern for one another they are more likely to thrive at work. Research shows that employees with a strong sense of community are more productive, loyal, and satisfied.
As leaders, we have an opportunity to cultivate community at work. Doing so leads to positive business outcomes like higher retention rates, better collaboration, and less absenteeism. Here are some proven tips for fostering community in your workplace.
Set the Tone at the Top
Everything starts with leadership If you want to build community, you must role model the behaviors you want to see Be present and engaged with employees at all levels. Make relationships a priority by regularly interacting with team members. Show interest in their lives and remember details. Kindness and consideration from leadership rubs off on others.
Make sure leaders at all levels follow your example. Reward and recognize managers who strengthen connections between team members. Community building should be part of your company values and culture.
Encourage Personal Connections
Get to know each other as human beings, not just coworkers. Simple things like learning about someone’s family or hobbies can strengthen bonds.
Make time for personal conversations and relationship building. For remote teams, use video calls so you can see facial expressions and pick up on nonverbal cues. Chat about life outside of work, and share a bit about yourself too.
Schedule in-person events when possible to connect face-to-face. Offsite meetups allow for informal mingling and team building. Even quick coffee chats or virtual icebreakers help colleagues find common ground.
Foster Inclusion and Belonging
For community to take root, employees must feel welcomed, valued, and like they belong. Inclusive environments where people of diverse backgrounds feel they can bring their authentic selves to work are key.
Promote equal access to information, resources, and opportunities. Make sure underrepresented groups have visibility and voice. Call out exclusionary or marginalizing behaviors. Employees should feel respected, safe, and able to fully participate.
Encourage coworkers to expand their circles. Reach out to and partner with those outside your immediate network. Bridging gaps between siloed groups helps build an interconnected community.
Support Vulnerability and Empathy
Community involves caring for one another, which requires openness and compassion. Demonstrate vulnerability yourself by admitting mistakes or sharing your feelings occasionally. Be judicious but avoid seeming perfectly polished or curated.
Respond with empathy when others express vulnerability. Emotionally connect with their experience and give support. Foster a climate where people know it’s okay not to always have it all together.
Promote human-centered policies that demonstrate actual care for employees’ wellbeing, like flexible schedules, generous time off, and mental health benefits. A little vulnerability and empathy goes a long way.
Facilitate Natural Connections
Look for organic opportunities to bring people together. Something as simple as an office kitchen or nearby common space allows for serendipitous interactions and relationship development.
Shared activities and experiences also unite people. Organize staff volunteering programs, wellness challenges, sports teams, book clubs, and other interest groups employees can opt into. Coordinate celebrations for company milestones or individual accomplishments.
For remote employees, create virtual spaces like chat channels or online communities to replace the watercooler talk. Enable informal socialization across common interests or demographics.
Encourage Camaraderie and Teamwork
Working toward shared goals builds strong bonds and interdependence. Foster collaboration by forming project teams of cross-functional members. Rotate groups so employees interact with various colleagues over time.
When launching teams, focus on relationship building and group cohesion first before jumping into tasks. Personal connections lay the foundation for great teamwork. Provide opportunities for intergroup mingling like trivia, potlucks, or paint nights.
Celebrate collective achievements. Recognize those who help others succeed. Camaraderie arises when employees feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves.
Facilitate Mentorship and Sponsorship
Mentorship programs connect employees with more experienced colleagues for guidance and development. These relationships offer both professional growth and personal fulfilment.
Sponsorship involves advocating for others, using your influence to connect them with opportunities. Sponsors open doors and elevate emerging talent. Mentors and sponsors take a vested interest in their partners, deepening interpersonal bonds.
Train leaders at all levels on effective mentoring and sponsorship, then facilitate pairings. Tie these initiatives to community building goals. Monitoring program effectiveness helps ensure meaningful engagement and relationship development.
Communicate Constantly
Frequent, transparent communication underpins community. Employees want to feel informed and able to voice opinions. Silence breeds feelings of exclusion and disengagement.
Communicate openly about organizational issues and changes. Invite discussion and feedback through town halls, surveys, focus groups, and one-on-one outreach. Make sure communication flows across levels and departments. No one should feel in the dark.
For remote staff, overcommunicate through multiple channels. Send regular video messages from leadership, create digital newsletters, host “ask me anything” forums, and stay highly responsive to direct outreach. Closing the physical distance requires even more virtual interaction.
Recognize, Reward, and Celebrate
Public recognition motivates and unites people. Spotlight those who exemplify your values like integrity, collaboration, and inclusion. Call out examples of employees living the culture you want to see.
Shout out wins and milestones with team-wide emails or in meetings. Profile high performers on your intranet or at all hands. Consider awards for community contributors.
Organize both large and small celebrations around company and individual achievements. It can be as simple as bringing treats when hitting a goal or hosting a catered party for a major product launch. Mark special occasions together.
Measure Progress and Impact
To know if your efforts are working, track engagement through community health surveys. Poll employees on feelings of belonging, connection, and morale before and after interventions.
Measure productivity and retention rates over time. Look for improvements in collaboration, absenteeism, and conflict levels. You may also see increases in program participation rates, usage of common spaces, and cross-department connections.
Be prepared to tweak your approach based on data and feedback. Not every initiative will stick at first. With genuine care for employees and persistence, you can build an engaging, supportive workplace community.
At the end of the day, community requires intention and sustained commitment. As leaders, we must make it a priority if we want to see it thrive. When people feel united by shared purpose and mutual care, they are happier, healthier, and more productive at work.
By role modeling human-centered values, encouraging authentic relationships, facilitating meaningful connections, communicating with transparency, celebrating together, and providing ongoing support, we can cultivate communities where every employee feels welcomed, valued, and like they belong. The collective power when this happens is immense.
Community gives us a feeling of purpose.
Employees are increasingly questioning their “why.” They want to connect work to something that feels meaningful, whether it’s their personal values, the company’s mission, or charitable work in the broader community. This is especially important to younger generations, who desire to be a part of something bigger than themselves. Research by Gallup finds that while their compensation is important and must be fair, millennials are motivated more by mission and purpose than by a paycheck.
The sheer nature of helping our colleagues in a mutually supportive community can also give us that sense of purpose. The Academy of Management Journal noted that workplace connections are not only crucial for career advancement and emotional support, but also fulfill a very human desire to serve and give back to others.
Community provides a sense of belonging.
According to the Society for Human Resources, belonging is the “feeling of security and support when there is a sense of acceptance, inclusion, and identity for a member of a certain group or place.”1 It’s a basic human requirement and appears right in the middle of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Today, belonging is fundamental as we seek to diversify our workplaces and ensure that they are inclusive for everyone.
It turns out that belonging at work is also good for the bottom line. According to a study by Deloitte Consulting, feeling like you belong can lead to a 56% increase in job performance, a 50% reduction in turnover risk, and a 75% decrease in sick days. It’s hard to argue with that!
Connect and lead, how we create community | Kathy Coffey | TEDxSnoIsleLibraries
How do you build community in the workplace?
Personal investment: Building community in the workplace often entails involving employees in decision-making processes rather than using top-down procedures. Taking part in these processes can help employees invest more in an organization’s success and feel a sense of responsibility in overcoming any challenges to progress that may arise.
How to build a strong workplace community?
To build a strong workplace community, organizations should actively encourage their employees to talk to each other about topics other than work. A strong team doesn’t just share the minimum amount of work-related information, they chat, and they don’t feel guilty about it.
How can a team build a community?
If you promote free-flowing communication between team members and allow all employees to share updates a community can begin to form naturally. These connections can strengthen a team and mean that employees feel more committed to the overall organization and its culture. It is important to welcome diverse perspectives.
Can companies build a sense of community at work?
The authors present several ways companies have successfully built a sense of community at work that leaders can consider emulating at their own organizations. For decades, we’ve been living lonelier, more isolated lives. As our social connectedness has decreased, so has our happiness and mental health.
