Humans are social animals — we crave meaningful interaction with others. Unfortunately, when we don’t get enough of it, there can be serious repercussions. This need, unsurprisingly, carries over to our lives at work. We spend so many hours of our lives working that we can end up shorting ourselves on important interactions with family and friends, so it’s only natural that we crave real connections in our work environment.
For those of us who work alone as freelancers or those of us who work in the corporate world but feel overwhelmingly isolated, what can we do to ensure that we have a better quality of life? One answer seems to be that we should satisfy our need to belong at work, and that appears to come down to trust and respect.
People also want to feel as though they’re being heard and understood at their places of work. Having others show that they care also can play a role. People appear to value check-ins more than public recognition, receiving invitations to events outside the office, being invited to meet with top leaders and inclusion in email conversations with top leaders.
And so we come to the crux of my point — we crave human contact. Even at work, we want to feel that someone else cares enough about us to inquire about our well-being.
Clearly, it’s very important to connect at work. Business units that score high in the area of employee engagement have 41% lower absenteeism and 59% lower turnover. In the same engaged group, there also were 70% fewer employee safety accidents, plus other positive statistics that help businesses realize higher profitability.
One of the important things to keep in mind when trying to engage people in the workplace is their communication preference. Some employees might prefer a face-to-face chat. Those who are much busier or working remotely might prefer a video chat. There are still other employees who really prefer an email. The key to making employees feel involved, seen and acknowledged is communicating with them in the method they find agreeable.
The general idea is that interacting with people is important. Encourage your employees to interrelate. Today, meaningfully interacting with co-workers is how many people get their daily dose of humanity, and that can go a long way toward employee satisfaction and company productivity.
This article has previously been featured on Forbes