Why Fostering Positive Human Connection at Work is More Important Than Ever
Improv Group ROT
July, 2024
You know that moment when you’re on a walk, and you see someone opposite of you, a stranger, heading in your direction? Sidewalk, trail, grocery aisle, you have only moments to decide how you’re going to react. Or maybe you always react the same way. Perhaps you offer eye contact. Perhaps you smile. Or maybe you act as though you don’t see them. Maybe they’ll believe that you are focussed so intently on your phone or the path in front of you, that you don’t notice them.
For the most part, I offer eye contact and smile. Depending on the vibe, I’ll give a kind “hello”. But sometimes I pull that look straight ahead trick too. When I find myself in this situation, pressured to decide on how I will handle this tiny impending human encounter, I feel a small level of stress. I wonder; will my eye contact make them feel uncomfortable? Will my lack of eye contact feel rude? My nature conflicts with my nurture, or maybe the other way around, and there I am struggling with a micro internal conflict on my neighborhood stroll. Then soon a decision is made and I forget about it, until I see someone new and thus cross the street.
Having worked from home for the past 4 years, perhaps my social skills have become rusty. But this isn’t unique to me. The pandemic had us physically isolated for months, and even before that society, especially American society, had been growing increasingly isolated. People already shopped from home, watched movies from home, swiped for dates, and scrolled for entertainment all from home. All things that used to require venturing out into society not so long ago. Then the pandemic helped us figure out that folks could work from home too. As a result, pretty much everyone is experiencing less social exposure now than ever before.
Like anything else, this isn’t inherently a bad thing. There are pros and cons. What this does mean is that many folks are interacting less with others. For many, the main people they interact with outside of their home, are at work. These interactions with fellow employees, in person or virtual, may be the only human interaction some people have in a day. This means a couple of things:
The quality of workplace interactions carries more weight than ever before.
People may be approaching those moments of human interaction with more anxiety than before.
This new reality means that companies have an important decision to make about how they encourage company culture, communication, and collaboration moving forward. With employee-to-employee interactions carrying more weight within people's lives and social anxiety on the rise, company leadership should be asking themselves, how do we foster positive connection in the workplace? How do we truly address the way people feel and connect? Our world has changed. Pizza parties and happy hours are not enough to make people engage with each other in a meaningful way. And if we're being honest, they never really were proper tools for this. Food can play a role in getting people to show up to events, but does not facilitate meaningful human connection. Nor do even the most sophisticated learning management systems.
Then what are leaders to do to foster connection? It's in this exact challenge that WitWorks thrives. We at WitWorks see this new reality as an opportunity to benefit employers and employees. Study after study shows that happy employees are more productive, a symbiotic relationship that we're really excited about. For WitWorks, creating joy through fun shared experiences is what we do best. And we know these memorable shared experiences connect people. As a huge bonus, people gain new perspectives and skills through our workshops, as we've managed to bake the learning right into the fun!
WitWorks is here to help you foster connections among your team. Book us today for your upcoming team event. We look forward to connecting.
