Foster Camaraderie to Build a Great Place to Work

Summary: It is team bonding and the sense of belonging that creates a positive work environment, where employees TRUST the people they work for, have PRIDE in what they do, and ENJOY the people they work with! Here I discuss the importance of and offer guidance to strengthen levels of camaraderie at work.

“If you can laugh together, you can work together” (Robert Orben)

Not long ago I was approached by an HRD friend of mine who was very concerned about his company’s survey results on ‘Teamwork, Cooperation and Camaraderie’. Their results were very much below the national benchmarks, over 50% of employees answered all related survey statements in a very negative manner. These were bad news indeed. So, how could I help him?

We need to start by understanding that camaraderie isn’t something that we can forcefully impose upon our employees. Instead, high levels of camaraderie will naturally occur when there is a healthy workplace culture, where employees are treated as individuals and open communication is celebrated. But before we discuss potential solutions for my friend’s ordeal, let’s first understand the concept of camaraderie at work and why it matters…

What is Camaraderie?

I am always interested in the origin of words. Camaraderie (French) is a relatively new English word, only added in 1840. The term ‘Comrade’ is used to mean friend, colleague, or ally, and derives from the Latin word ‘Camera’ which means chamber or room, so, camaraderie literally means ‘Chamber Mate’ – it unquestionably denotes a very close and personal connection between two or more people.

In a business environment, camaraderie generally refers to the relationship of friendship and community, the understanding, loyalty and trust that is created between colleagues at work. It is all about being able to smoothly work together.

“Camaraderie is when people believe their co-workers see them as complete individuals, with families and hobbies and passions outside of work, when they have fun, and they celebrate both personal and company milestones. They see themselves as a large team, and they go out of their way to cooperate and help” (Burchell & Robin)

It is workplace camaraderie what keeps employees on good terms during challenging work assignments. Any team that spends a lot of time pursuing a common goal can cultivate the quality of camaraderie, not only when celebrating a win, but also loss, defeat and setbacks can draw a team much closer together.

Why is Camaraderie important?

According to Great Place to Work, employees rate a place as a great workplace when they consistently:

• Trust the people they work for - their relationship with management (fostered by Credibility, Respect & Fairness)
• Take Pride in what they do - their sentiments about their job or role (manifested as Pride), and...
• Experience Camaraderie with their colleagues – the kind of friendship and the sentiments employees hold towards their co-workers.

Enhancing Trust, Pride, and Camaraderie in the workplace is the central task of effective leadership in today’s organisations. It focuses on the relationships between employees and their leaders, between employees and their jobs, and between employees and each other. These are the main indicators for assessing great workplaces, being camaraderie an important aspect of the evaluation (see the Great Place to Work model below).

A workplace culture of camaraderie is a key element of Best Workplaces and is what people managers should be striving for to maximise employee engagement. While it may seem like camaraderie in the workplace is nice but not totally essential, managers shouldn’t minimise the importance of team bonding, especially if they’re looking to lower employee turnover rates and increase productivity.

Consistent with Great Place to Work, sense of camaraderie among employees is defined by the quality of the intimacy (ability to be oneself), hospitality (socially friendly & welcoming atmosphere), and community (sense of family or team) among employees within the workplace. So now you understand that there is more to camaraderie than free beer, parties and fancy meeting rooms with colourful beanbag chairs.

Camaraderie is closely related to employee morale, the general emotion and mental state of colleagues in a team. High morale means that individuals are feeling well and happy. It has been proven to have a huge impact on business performance. It brings higher employee engagement, better retention, it helps your team to perform better and be more productive.

Research also demonstrates that camaraderie is closely associated with employee wellbeing due to its positive impact on people’s mental health. Employees who work in an environment seamlessly aligned with their personal interests and lifestyle, characterised by friendship and laughter, will not only be more engaged and creative, but also less stressed.

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together” (African Proverb)

Workplace camaraderie can be very powerful for organisations because friendly conversations can positively develop into innovation discussions to help the team and ultimately the company thrive. We know that when team members are satisfied and energised, they will produce stronger results and put in discretionary effort to meet their goals.

If camaraderie is absent, morale is likely to be low. Low morale would indicate that the individuals in the team have low spirits. Low levels of camaraderie weaken the ability to work as a team, bring high attrition rates, expensive recruiting costs, and more time that roles are unfilled or filled by new and not-yet-productive employees.

The best work happens when employees are enjoying themselves. With work taking up such a large chunk of people’s lives and the constant pressure to produce results, as a business leader, you will need to inject some much-needed fun into your workplace! 

Camaraderie in UK Workplaces

As discussed, workplace camaraderie is an important environmental necessity within a company, but survey after survey shows that camaraderie and cooperation at work is at an all-time low… so my friend's company is not alone on this front!

In a recent study by Great Place to Work UK, over 2,000 random UK employees were asked about the levels of camaraderie at their workplaces. Nearly 40% mentioned they couldn’t rely on colleagues to support them at work (or in their personal lives). They felt that when cooperation was needed, they were not able to receive the support that was required by them.

These low levels of cooperation are very much substantiated by lack of camaraderie: Over 40% believed there was no family/team feeling in their organisations; 40% of employees did not feel people cared about each other at work; over 40% of employees thought special events were not celebrated at their workplaces; and finally, only 63% of respondents felt they were made welcome when they joined the organisation.

“Cooperation is the thorough conviction that nobody can get there unless everybody gets there” (Virginia Burden)

All these indicators reveal vast opportunities to improve levels of camaraderie and cooperation in UK workplaces. Research shows that workplace failures are a direct result of a lack of collaboration or ineffective communication. Great chemistry between employees is key to a culture of teamwork and productivity. It is therefore critical that UK managers promote and value camaraderie as a competitive advantage, for recruiting and retaining top employees, and improving engagement, creativity and productivity.

Building the Foundation for a Culture of Camaraderie

So, how can we improve camaraderie in UK workplaces? Now that you know that camaraderie matters, you may wonder what are those key strategic undertakings required to build the foundation for sustainable camaraderie at your workplace? As an HR professional or team leader, you need to consider the following:

• Improve line management relationships - It is essential to Train your staff on people management skills. Poor people management and leadership skills are one of the leading killers of morale at workplaces. The first thing to do is to encourage managers to listen carefully to their subordinates and solicit their honest feedback.
• Discourage toxic work environments - Avoid pitting employees against each other by ruthless internal competition or any appearance of unfair favouritism. This is the fastest way to foster resentment. Keep conflict and arguments among team members at a minimum. Make sure communications are clear, avoid rumours.
• Clarify team goals - All employees should feel that they are working together to achieve a common result. If everyone knows what the organisation’s goals are, this will influence all team communications and keep everyone moving in the same direction.
• Define roles & responsibilities - If there is any ambiguity regarding roles and responsibilities, it will be impossible for people to work together effectively.
• Implement team recognition programs - One of the best ways to build camaraderie in the workplace is to reward and give formal recognition for team achievements and good performance. Develop incentives to encourage effective teamwork e.g. giving praise and issuing small tokens of appreciation.
• Recognise and respect individuality – An inclusive culture at work indicates a climate in which respect, equity, and positive recognition of differences are all cultivated and valued. By nurturing and promoting a culture of inclusion, you create a work environment in which employees feel like they truly are a part of a team.
• Recruit for cultural fit within the team - Include future co-workers in the interview process for qualified candidates and make sure they are as enthusiastic about the new recruit as the hiring team leader. Maximise your employee referral program where the best fits will come from friends and co-workers of your current successful team. Remember, new employees can be taught new skills, but they can’t be taught camaraderie.
• Create an effective onboarding process – Revise your internal mechanisms through which new employees acquire the necessary knowledge, skills, and behaviours in order to become effective organisational members and insiders. Make sure they feel welcomed in the organisation.
• Avoid high turnover of employees – This has a terrible impact on camaraderie and the overall work environment. It's difficult to feel part of a team and develop valuable personal relationships when colleagues keep changing all the time.
• Enhance remuneration and benefits - Low pay and poor benefits can be a leading cause of low morale. When employees are underpaid, they feel undervalued, stressed, and are most likely looking for a better position somewhere else.
• Encourage social activities – Finally, create a company culture that is open to relationship building exercises and events. Encourage a sense of camaraderie by formulating team activities. Camaraderie is enhanced when employees know each other and are comfortable discussing a variety of issues. Get creative and assign an internal committee of employees to come up with new social activities or challenges once a month. You can allocate a monthly budget for this purpose.

Image above: Making pizza with the Great Place to Work UK team! – Yes, practising what we preach... fostering camaraderie and building a great place to work for all - Remember, it is team bonding and the sense of belonging that creates a positive work environment, where employees TRUST the people they work for, have PRIDE in what they do, and ENJOY the people they work with! 🍕😀👍

Some Key Tactics to Promote Camaraderie

So, how can you implement those strategies to build the necessary foundation for a culture of camaraderie at your workplace? One way to help improve camaraderie at work is to foster friendships the good old-fashioned way, which is created when we chit-chat, hang-out, joke, and have fun with colleagues at work. Consider the following practices:

• Welcoming new colleagues - Create a sense of camaraderie from day one so new employees feel welcome and comfortable and can avoid the awkward first few weeks when they don’t know anybody. Assign a committee to greet and officially welcome new recruits on their first days at the workplace. As a manager get involved by allowing time for a tour of the work facility and introductions to new colleagues.
• Set up mentoring programmes – This initiative offers one-on-one training for new employees by assigning co-workers to provide hands-on training and assist in familiarising newcomers with the organisation’s internal practices.
• Role Modelling – The more you can encourage people to use ‘We/Us’ rather than ‘They/Them’ when referring to other colleagues in your organisation, the more people will see themselves as part of the larger team and family.
• Encourage slack time - Encourage walking within the office. Understand that chitchat during the day isn’t bad. Casual conversation helps your employees to connect on a deeper level. Promote ‘Coffee & Croissant’ meetings to encourage talking time with a colleague: 20 mins a day, any topic (employees are to be paired randomly). These events could be informal, such as meeting together over coffee at the nearby café or walking around a park at least once a day.
• Set up socialising time - Promote frequent meetups after or during working hours. Schedule events where bonding can happen, like a happy hour, lunch, or other get-together where people can chat casually with their co-workers. Have your department heads take their teams out to lunch once a month. Most people are okay with a glass of wine and a nice meal at a restaurant, not in a pub, but in a quiet place where everybody can have a nice conversation, don’t allow groups to form, encourage a rotation system so that everybody can talk to each other.
• Organise one different outing per month - If you really want to show your employees how fun colleagues and managers can be, take the team outside of the workplace. Your people are putting a lot of effort into your business, allow them to unwind nicely e.g. a more elaborate team building event that takes place over the weekend at a secluded resort on the outskirts of town.
• Organise sports events - Team chess tournament afternoon. Football afternoon encouraging people to participate as well as observers. Walking event by counting steps and identifying your office’s step master of the month. Preparing for a 10K charity run event.
• Team building and outbound programs - Design activities that encourage team members to put their problem-solving skills into play to break barriers and allow free flow of thoughts and information among colleagues. Hold brainstorming sessions where people can share ideas and get to know each other better outside of their normal duties. Better if done outside the office.
• Games at work - Focus on games that involve the entire office and allow employees to use their skills, just don't make the rules too complicated. Split the staff into teams and ask them to compete against each other for a common non-work-related goal. Working together for a common purpose fosters friendship quickly. Reward whichever team achieves the goal first. Define a secret mission one day and award prizes to all employees who complete the tasks first. Company team quiz events or treasure hunt days are popular.
• Fun learning activities - Recharge your teams’ energies with non-work-related team training e.g. Take a group cooking class, unlike happy hour, your employees would get to have an activity to create something together and have time to eat and chat. Art sessions, such as drawing classes, are also popular (for which in-house exhibitions can be organised).
• Arrange brown bag lunches – Where employees discuss personal non-work-related subjects that are of interest to them. Allow them to share their passion (history, geography, etc.) and hobbies (fish keeping, music, etc.) with the rest of the team.
• Improve the physical workplace – Facilitate employee mingling at the workplace. Try to avoid any literal and figurative workplace barriers, such as cubicles and doors to different departments and rigorous job hierarchies. Create informal meeting rooms for socialisation purposes at the workplace.
• Don’t forget special events - Celebrate all birthdays of the month, Christmas and other religious festivities, work anniversaries, perhaps a nice barbecue for summer solstice (the longest day of the year), Mother’s Day, Labour Day, etc.

The list can be endless... but let’s not forget that forcing people to participate in compulsory team building activities can be detrimental to good camaraderie. What is fun for a team leader might be degrading or too physically demanding for another colleague, and the last thing you should want is for resentment to grow among your staff. Ensure all your team building exercises are fully-inclusive so that everybody can take part in them and nobody is left behind.

Encouraging Virtual Camaraderie

Nowadays, building Virtual Camaraderie is non-negotiable for employees working remotely. This was a growing trend before the COVID-19 pandemic, but now the transition to working from home has been dramatically accelerated and is becoming the new normal. Consider the following practices:

• Manage Virtual Teams Effectively - As the team leader, check-in regularly with all remote employees. Organise weekly calls with the whole team and post regular video updates. Encourage small talk before the start of each work-related video meeting.
• Encourage video chats among colleagues - Use more video and less phone or email. While it may be tempting to have work-related team meetings over the phone, video chats can help your team feel more connected than voice phone calls. 
• Create virtual breakrooms – For remote teams who are scattered all around the place, create a virtual meeting room that people can log into when they want to take their lunch or have an afternoon break. This gives people a place to go when they need a friendly face to talk to. You can even agree specific times of the day for everybody to informally meet. 
• Create informal online group chats/channels - Use your people's preferred chat app (e.g. Teams, Zoom, Slack channels, WhatsApp groups, etc.) to give them an outlet to share informal/casual information, e.g. post funny pictures of themselves, their pets, discuss sports or post their latest artistic accomplishments or culinary successes.

Image above: We need to navigate new ways of connecting with colleagues we no longer see in-person every day. It is the time to get creative with virtual social interactions and help one another stay connected while working from home. At Great Place to Work UK we have several team-related weekly calls, some directly linked to business matters, while other are more of a social nature e.g. company quiz, learning/experience sharing sessions, etc. Don't let social distancing make you feel unhappy or disconnected at work!

Some Final Thoughts…

We all can build a better society by helping companies improve their workplaces and overall employee experience. Improving levels of camaraderie at your workplace will help you achieve organisational goals while having a positive impact on the working lives of your employees.

It is your employees who will determine whether your workplace and organisational culture are good or not - you need to listen to them! As a business leader you need to consider your actions through the lens of your employees’ perspective.

Fostering camaraderie and having a great workplace make perfect business sense, but at the end of the day, I strongly believe it is also the right thing to do… and don’t forget, any company can become a great place to work - It is just a matter of getting started now!

• Further reading: Creating a culture of ‘Respect and Trust’
• Further reading: The ‘Golden Rule’ for Managing People
• Further reading: 8 Essential People Management Skills
• Further reading: Creating a Culture of Wellbeing

Note: This opinion blog has been mainly inspired by 'The Great Workplace' (by M. Burchell & J. Robin); 'A Great Place to Work for All' (by M.C. Bush); and the fantastic work being done by Great Place to Work UK.

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Disclaimer: The author is making this ‘Opinion Blog’ available in his personal effort to advance the understanding of best practices in workplace related matters. The author assumes no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content of this ‘Opinion Blog’ or for the results obtained from the use of the information provided. The information is provided on an ‘as is’ basis with no guarantees of completeness, accuracy, usefulness or timeliness and without any warranties of any kind whatsoever, express or implied. The views expressed are solely those of the author in his private capacity and do not in any way represent the views of any entity whatsoever with which the author has been, is now, or is to be affiliated in the future.