connecting at work
a multi-pronged approach
When relationships between library workers are strained, what can we intentionally do to encourage reconnection? We think that keeping people present and in person keeps us connected, hence the blowback against remote working that’s in the air.
Social connection is key for empathy, for kindness, for care, and for creating safe/brave spaces. We think of this as a one-on-one relationship that we can cultivate, but Khalil Smith, Brigid Lynn and David Rock use the neumonic CLEAR to remind us that it’s not just ONE relationship that matters, but several. CLEAR stands for colleagues, leader, employer, and role.
I write about support from a variety of relationships, but as a peer support function. From supervisor to library worker, from leader to library workers, from library workers to our communities. At some level we are peers to each other.
Consider how connected you are with your colleagues. Loneliness at work is a thing. Joining our Friday craft hangout in the library is re-building my connection with my co workers. Participating in our trivia hang-out last week helped as well. How can you create connection amongst your peers?
How do you characterize your connection to your leader?
Research has found that 70% of the variance in team engagement can be attributed to a manager, making it clear that leader connection is a critical component of the workplace connections conversation.1
Clearly, connection to your leader is critical for team engagement. Are you communicating with your leader daily? Weekly? Monthly? What opportunities have you to build professional warmth with them? Are they about right? Or lacking?
How connected are you to your employer? How would you define the alignment between your employer/organization’s values and your values? Are they close? Are they disparate? For me, there’s a cognitive dissonance between our purported values, let’s call is values performance, verses what people do behind closed doors.
How connected are you to your role? When we’re highly attuned to our role, things are great. We’re in the zone, feeling flow, feeling purposeful, and receiving all the rewards we deserve for our efforts.
Here’s where it gets complicated. Each of us have different, possibly unique needs on all four of these planes. And, it fluctuates depending on what’s happening in the world, in our personal lives, etc.
Understanding this multi-tiered approach to workplace connection may help library leaders support their workers through the creation and maintenance of authentic relationships.
https://hbr.org/2024/10/what-employers-get-wrong-about-how-people-connect-at-work