More than a quarter of U.K employees (27%) feel like outsiders at work.
A staggering 34 percent do not consider their workplace to be a ‘community’.
This is despite the majority of U.K. employees (65%) wanting to feel a strong sense of belonging at work.
These are the findings from O.C. Tanner’s 2023 Global Culture Report which collected and analysed the perspectives of over 36,000 employees, leaders, HR practitioners, and business executives from 20 countries around the world, including 4,653 from the U.K.
What creates a sense of community?
According to the report, there are eight key factors that provide a workplace with a strong sense of community, including shared goals, commitment, communication, feedback, camaraderie, trust, adaptation and unity.
Of these, U.K. employees ranked camaraderie/ relationship with team members as the most important aspect for nurturing belonging (cited by 73% of respondents).
“Thriving cultures have a strong sense of community that brings and holds employees together,” says Georgia Portwain, Culture and Engagement Strategist from workplace culture expert O.C. Tanner.
“Employees who feel that they belong will stay at the company for longer, will be more resilient to change and are more likely to deliver great work.”
The benefits of having a workplace community are significant
The findings reveal that organisations that score high on the ‘community index’ are 100 per cent more likely to have employees that produce aspirational levels of great work, with a 58 percent lower probability of their employees actively looking for another job.
Despite such compelling reasons to build a workplace community, just 52 percent of U.K. employees believe that creating a community is a priority for their organisational leaders.
Portwain adds, “Leaders need to recognise that having a strong and sustaining workplace community is the foundation of organisational success, and so they must find ways to bring their people together and create an environment of trust, unity and appreciation.”
Amelia Brand is the Editor for HRreview, and host of the HR in Review podcast series. With a Master’s degree in Legal and Political Theory, her particular interests within HR include employment law, DE&I, and wellbeing within the workplace. Prior to working with HRreview, Amelia was Sub-Editor of a magazine, and Editor of the Environmental Justice Project at University College London, writing and overseeing articles into UCL’s weekly newsletter. Her previous academic work has focused on philosophy, politics and law, with a special focus on how artificial intelligence will feature in the future.