How to create a real sense of belonging in a workplace? Creating a communicative relationship between executives and workers is a requisite step. But it’s hard to form a community at work, and it’s especially hard when your executives are sitting at HQ and employees are spread around the world. That calls for innovative ways of getting them together. 

This was one of the lessons from an expert panel during From Day One’s October virtual conference on how HR tech can connect, motivate, and recognize hybrid workforces. If you want people to feel like they belong to a community at work, they need to know that company leaders want them there and value them as contributors, said panelists during a discussion titled “Harnessing the Power of Workplace Community,” which I moderated. 

Feeling like one belongs to a community really matters. People who have a sense of community at work are more likely to thrive (both inside and outside of work), more likely to be engaged, and they’re more likely to stay with that organization long-term.

“We’re still the same social animals we were in 2019, with the same needs,” said Raphael Crawford-Marks, founder and CEO of employee-recognition platform Bonusly. “There is a ton of organizational psychology research showing that you have much better outcomes for companies, and for employees, when you have friends and positive relationships and mentorship at work. And all of those things, to a lesser or greater extent, have become harder to come by in a remote environment.”

For early-career employees trying to build their first professional networks and find mentorship, remote work can be an obstacle. It’s also a challenge for managers who need to engender camaraderie among employees, said Crawford-Marks. “I think a lot of companies have come to use [digital communication tools] as a crutch. Tools like Slack are really helpful when you have a lot of synchronous, high-fidelity, in-person communication going on, but when it becomes the only or the main form of communication, you start to really feel the effects of losing tone and expression in the written communication.”

Panelists encouraged managers to call employees rather than messaging or emailing them all the time, have impromptu video calls, and look for excuses to bring people together in person.

But creating a community at work is not as easy as ordering workers back to the office. Return-to-office mandates have inspired resentment from many workers happy with remote arrangements, and ultimatums aren’t exactly community-building mechanisms. 

Managers have to make in-person interactions clearly beneficial to the worker, not just the apparent whim of executives, said Ray Stevens, global head of talent management at investment firm State Street. He noted that although the company’s employee-engagement survey indicates being in the office has improved engagement for the company, he acknowledged that requiring workers to return to the office can be seen as overstepping. “It has to be positioned to show that there’s value in coming together. Here’s what’s in it for you,” he said.

It helps if employers call workers back to an office with a visible, reachable leader. Some panelists recommended sending executives out to global worksites on a regular basis, while others described going as far as permanently relocating theirs.

Investing in Employee Resource Groups 

Wind-turbine manufacturer Vestas is a multinational organization, spread across 37 states and 10 Canadian provinces. “We have office employees, we have remote employees, we have service technicians who are at the service sites, climbing the turbines repairing them, and we have two factories that manufacture the products,” said Michelle Gessaro, the company’s VP of people and culture. “Culture can be a challenge.”

At Vestas, employee resource groups (ERGs) have been useful for giving workers agency in their work environments, and for creating a channel of communication between employees and executives. 

For instance, after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision on abortion in 2022, one of the ERGs came to her and asked about benefits for those who need access to health care where it had been cut off. “We already had travel benefits for other types of procedures, and we just needed to expand them to cover all employees for reproductive care,” she said. “It was a pretty quick and easy thing that we could make adjustments to on our end, then I was able to give the feedback to the ERG.”

Running and operating an ERG is a great deal of work, but employers can make it worth the effort by being responsive to the members’ needs and concerns. “It shows the employees that you value their voice,” said Gessaro.

Leaders should be both visible and accessible, said panelists. Otherwise, employees won’t feel that their own presence matters or that their input is being considered and acted upon.

“I think leaders need to be more visible, and sometimes that involves traveling,” said Stevens. “The leaders really set the tone. What they do, first and foremost, the organization will follow.” Smaller in-person gatherings can make those events feel more beneficial and less anonymous.

Communities Made Possible by Artificial Intelligence

Other lessons emerged during the conversation, most notably about the community-building capabilities of artificial intelligence. “When used thoughtfully, it can greatly enhance human communication and collaboration,” said Sheila Jagannathan, the global head of learning and capacity building at the World Bank. 

For one, automation can create free time by streamlining routine tasks, time that can be used for building connections among colleagues. Another creative application is office design. “AI can analyze how physical space–like conference rooms, collaborative spaces, and breakout rooms–is used, and offer insights and guide office design and layout, ensuring space fosters interaction, collaboration, and community,” Jagannathan said. 

Some organizations are already using AI for sentiment analysis to identify the mood across the organization, and AI also has implications for diversity, equity, and inclusion. There are “bias-detection tools, AI tools that analyze hiring processes, promotions, workplace interactions, and detect potential bias,” she said. 

Building the Relationship Between Executives and Employees

To feel like they belong to a community, workers need to feel like their input is seriously considered. “We tell them that they have a voice, but then we have to make sure that we hear them too,” said Jacqueline Fearer, who leads culture and engagement at global information-management company Iron Mountain. After the company’s annual employee engagement survey last year, Fearer learned that workers considered it a waste of time. Some asked: Where was the company’s response to their feedback?

This year, to make the exercise a relational one, the the company added one question: “If you could tell the executive team one thing, what would you tell them?”

Management got close to 10,000 responses. Some of the problems identified were small things, but ones that needed to be addressed, like poorly lit parking lots or perennially empty office coffee stations. Bigger matters take longer to change, but smaller items can be addressed immediately, just to show workers that you’re reading the comment cards. 

“Sometimes it’s those little things that really matter,” said Fearer. “Because everything else seems so huge and vast, immense and strategic, sometimes it’s just about getting more coffee in the kitchen.”

Emily McCrary-Ruiz-Esparza is a freelance journalist and From Day One contributing editor who writes about work, the job market, and women’s experiences in the workplace. Her work has appeared in the BBC, The Washington Post, Quartz at Work, Fast Company, and Digiday’s Worklife.

(Featured illustration by Aelitta/iStock by Getty Images)