Damn, it feels good to be a part of something. There’s a science behind it actually, and for much of the employee experience, it’s absent.
Enter, WholeHearted.
When you think back to the times when your employer has made a contribution to the community, it generally falls into one of two categories:
- My employer made a financial donation, or
- We spent a couple of hours volunteering
That’s generally the scope of what we see in organizational givebacks. To be clear, we’re not casting shade on either of these mechanisms. What we ARE challenging is how relevant both of those options are to the employee experience, and what type of connection it creates amongst employees and leadership.
Fast forward to the last few years. The world is facing a lot of pain and suffering, stress levels are at an all-time high, and we’re all a little disconnected from our teams. One would argue that as we navigate the #futureofwork, our desire to accomplish something together, to connect, and to make a difference is front and center.
When we serve our community, we feel less depressed, we get to know more people and broaden our lens, we reduce stress levels, and feel a sense of purpose.
Citing some of our favourite thought-leaders, in this fantastic article, we learn that “Indeed, we’ve found that a leader’s ability to enable a compassionate response throughout a company directly affects the organization’s ability to maintain high performance in difficult times. It fosters a company’s capacity to heal, to learn, to adapt, and to excel.”
The good news is, this can be done on almost any level of an organization. Fostering a culture that boasts a penchant to giveback ideally starts from the top, but can also be cultivated within smaller teams as well. You may have had a colleague leave your department to ‘go work for [enter other middle manager’s name here]’ – in most circumstances, that is the employee traversing the organization to find a leader that provides a more enriched employee experience.
Giving back, supporting local, and sourcing intentionally is not every key to success in teams, but it certainly helps. I mean…you have to start somewhere right?