What do you know about Jenny in accounting - other than that she probably loves numbers?
And what would you talk about to Jeremy from marketing when you are tired of talking about the weather?
If you ever met them in real life, you probably know some tidbits about their non-work activities. Jenny loves running and seems to do it first thing in the morning. Jeremy’s weekend plans usually revolve around his daugthers handball tournaments.
In the physical world, we talk about more than just work. We communicate on more levels than just via text and prearranged video calls.
And it’s this second level of connection, the social level, where the magic happens.
Social bonds create belonging - more durable then a team charter.
Social bonds create psychological saftey through cross-team connections.
Conversations about “other things” strenghten the overall network and company culture.
How does this look like?
Visualizing how people connect
The following image depicts connections formed when communication only evolves around work. Everyone talks to everyone else within their own function (colour). Some people talk to adjacent functions to organize work or pass information. This also means that some people are connected to the company only through one contact.
Now, if these people have the opportunity to connect over non-work related topics, we can create a second layer of connection. This layer transcends functional boundaries and connects people who otherwise do not have any reason to talk to each other.
In the following image you can see the additional networks created through joint interests like running or board games, or through joint identities like parents or members of the LGBTQ+ community.
Combining these different conversations obviously creates a stronger overall network, increasing the probability for people to have more than one connection to the company. As an added benefit you can see people talking to each other who don’t necessarily share work responsibilities – and yet, these links are important for both innovation as well as crisis management.
How to purposefully create non-work relationships
In your typical office environment these non-work relationships often form around the coffee machine, on the same office floor, or during lunch hour. If you have more than one office, you often end up with location-based culture silos.
You also inadvertently add a temporal caveat to the non-work connections. Usually people will get to know those with similar habits, maybe finding someone among the 11am coffee crew that shares interest with them. Or maybe not. Either way, they probably won’t get to know the people from the 10am coffee crew – because they don’t meet.
That’s where a remote-first mindset is an advantage: instead of counting on in-person serendipity to bring people together, you can actively enable birds of a feather to recognize each other. By facilitating spaces (often chat rooms) for people to talk about their interests and share recommendations you can create those relationships that will make people want to stay.
Remember, people don’t leave companies, they leave managers.
And people don’t stay because of the company vision, they stay for their friends (or “those who are like them”.
Creating these interest/identity-based online spaces is also the easiest way to break up silos. It converts work into a part of your employees’ life without taking over their entire identity. It breads loyalty through trust, and it allows employees to engage with each other in a meaningful way.
Some examples of non-work related topics
Personally, I’ve participated in all kinds of non-work related channels in past companies. Some of them would only be active at specific times, some would spark to life every x weeks or months. None of them would take away from my work time, and all of them would make those quick breaks (aka coffee breaks) more enjoyable.
So here’s the non-complete list of channels I’ve engaged in:
running (obviously)
plant-lovers
parenting
LGBTQ+
book club (usually semi-work related)
fantasy readers
wtf/rants (for when you want to scream into the void - no solutions allowed)
meditation
Mariah-Carey (in this channel people would simply write down the date and location when they heard “All I want for Christmas is You”, nothing else - the channel was usually active from September to Christmas)
penpals
and probably many more that I do not remember.
And the beauty is, as a company you don’t have to mandate the list. You just have to create an easy process for people to create those spaces and inform others that they exist.
PD: You can find some more practical tips here.