Designing a Culture of Engagement During the Pandemic (Part One)
Serving as a deterrent, or in other cases a punishment, our prison systems still practice the use of solitary confinement. This is because social exclusion, or perceived social isolation can lead to severe consequences such as anxiety, loneliness or depression. Lack of social connection is a greater detriment than what is commonly perceived. We are a profoundly social animal, creating emergent structures beyond the individual — that is the society we live in — thereby forming culture, which is part of what defines and shapes us.
Social connections are the relationships you have with the people around you. According to Lieberman, there are three neural networks within the brain that promote our social connection: one that involves our ability to feel social pain and pleasure; one that allows us to read others’ emotions and predict their behaviour; and one that helps us to absorb cultural beliefs and values, thereby linking us to our social groups.
“Anyone who either cannot lead the common life, or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society; is either a beast or a god.” — Aristotle
As beings we have an innate desire to be needed or accepted, to feel as though we belong. In Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs social necessities are placed as one of the ‘deficiency needs’, which when deprived in a work setting can cause mental health issues, high attrition, low career satisfaction and/or low productivity.
This is a three-part series that will approach the impacts of the pandemic on employee engagement from the perspective of the employee, the manager and the organisation.
The Employee
So, what personas have been created with working remotely? If we borrow from social psychology, Kurt Lewin adopted the concept of a field which represents an individual’s “life space”. Through topological systems he was able to show how constituents within this field are not only related, but also serve as determinants of an individual’s behaviour. He is commonly known for the term Group Dynamics, which in essence is when members within a group form a common perception through shared norms and beliefs.
Due to the pandemic the transformation of traditional workspaces is being exacerbated, leading to a hybrid workforce. The conventional office has been divided into two realities, in-office and remote-based employees. This ultimately creates ingroup and outgroupdynamics. Social psychologist Elliot Aronson tackles the concept of minimal group paradigm which aids to highlight discrimination between groups. The resulting effects can be the homogeneity effect, ingroup favouritism or the ultimate attribution error. Ingroup members, in this case in-office employees, will have knowledge of the group at an individual level, recognising each member to have a unique personality. This nurtures relationships of shared connections and experiences. In comparison when considering members of the outgroup, despite the lack of information of each individual, they evaluate them in terms of the ingroup’s shared values. Ingroup favouritism as a behaviour then shows when one distinguishes their own group as better. So, ingroup-outgroup rationale is essentially tribal thinking, which is argued by evolutionary psychologists to be a trait hardwired in humans.
“The stress factors we encounter daily, determine how our DNA expresses itself. We carry those stress factors for approximately 200 years” — Rajkumari Neogy
Connection can be the best form of engagement, however with no intervention from leadership virtual teams (remotely-based workers) encounter fewer organic connections, and potentially create anonymity amongst members. A lack of connections and general engagement may cause low productivity, and employee dissatisfaction, then leading to a low rate of retention. The question then is, how do you turn a passive observer into an active participant and member of the team?
