Your Guide to Building a Culture of Emotional Connection

In the past, a lack of company cohesiveness and understanding was able to be partially masked by physical proximity and sporadic office perks. Today, historic upheaval has exposed what people really need at work, and emboldened them to stick to it. Far from being a temporary symptom of the pandemic, employee expectations and their relationship with work has been permanently redefined. 

Organisational culture can feel both elusive and inconclusive. What does it look like? Does it matter? How does it really impact the people on the ground feeling the heat?

Whether remote, in-office or hybrid, the task for companies remains the same: to create a positive organisational culture which authentically reflects changing employee expectations, without foregoing the results the business needs.

Read on to explore the business case for emotional connection, and how leadership create a healthy culture where people, teams and great ideas thrive.

How do you define organisational culture?

Organisational culture is the collective behaviour of your people. It’s what the majority of people do the majority of the time, the nature of the language and relationships within the organisation, and the spoken/unspoken norms, values and systems operating at work.

At FranklinCovey, we have always defined a stand-out culture as one where every individual is able to say “I’m a valued member of a winning team, doing meaningful work in an environment of trust”.

In other words, the strength of your culture depends on how emotionally connected your employees’ feel to each other, their leader, and their contribution. The future of work is people-centric, understanding and embracing the fact that human drivers determine business outcomes.  That is why organisational culture is your greatest competitive advantage; it is the one thing that can’t be copied. 

Our relationship with work is at breaking point

You probably pay great attention to your financial bank accounts, the withdrawals and deposits made, but what we call at FranklinCovey the Emotional Bank Account is just as important. Sincerely listening to your colleagues concerns without interrupting? EBA deposit. Constantly controlling and diminishing a direct report’s work? Significant EBA withdrawal.

The basis of all relationships, when the EBA balance is high, so is trust- both people and work thrive. When the balance is low, trust, engagement and loyalty plummet. Your organisational culture is the sum of all these individual EBA’s, and research shows you might be overdrawn without realising.

According to Hewlett-Packard’s 2023 Work Relationship Index, only 29% of knowledge workers consistently experiencing purpose, fulfilment and genuine connection to their work, and just 25% receive the respect they feel they deserve.

Perhaps most telling- and startling- is that 74% respondents in the UK “are willing to earn less if it means loving work more”.

Some of the reasons employees may not be loving work right now include chronic change fatigue, overwork due to understaffing, low trust amongst hybrid teams, or a lack of recognition. The result? Emotional disconnection from the purpose and experience of the role.

What does emotional connection at work mean?

Holistically speaking, connection is a sense of belonging, of feeling seen, heard and valued. It’s that feeling that we matter to other people, as a member of the team and play vital role in achieving the organisational goal.

Another way of summarising connection is the manifestation of what Stephen R. Covey, our co-founder and author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, described as the four basic needs of the Whole Person:

Body (how we live, physical wellbeing, energy, self-care)

Mind (our ability to learn, personal vision and aspiration)

Heart (our unique passion, strength of relationships, compassion)

Spirit (the overall guiding force which seeks meaning, contribution and purpose)

Connection then is a simultaneously grounding and unleashing force central to why and how we work. Sound powerful? It is.

A connected company is a ‘sticky’ company. Emotional connection drives employee retention by making work feel less like a chore and more like a meaningful, enjoyable contribution. These are jobs people stay in- both mentally and literally.

Four ways a culture of connection connects to the success of your business

The benefits of a strong organisational culture which is built on connection are numerous, but here are four:

Employee Connection Drives Inclusion

We instinctively connect with people who are like us- and when that connection doesn’t come naturally, leaders prioritise efficiency, depending on unconscious biases to form flawed opinions and make limiting decisions. With an increasingly diverse workforce, it has never been more important to intentionally create an inclusive environment which invites people to embrace differences and bring their authentic selves to work. They’ll bring their best efforts with them too; According to the World Economic Forum, organisations that lead in DEI have innovation rates up to 20% higher. 

Employee Connection Creates Collaborative Teams

Synergy, the sixth habit of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People-  FranklinCovey’s world-renowned solution- is the highest form of collaboration and unlocked potential. It requires accepting that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Synergistic teams reach new and exciting ideas that couldn’t be created alone, solve more problems and think more creatively by having an openness to others and new ways of seeing things. When teams are this connected, the trust they share makes it both safe to take risks and get work done faster.

Connection Aligns Goals and Values Between Employees and the Business

It is people who make the productivity wheel go round, and people need purpose and fulfilment to do their very best work. Connecting employees to the wider mission, vision and goal creates a galvanising sense of ownership and accountability for employees. They feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, which increases their motivation and commitment.

Connection Influences Employee Retention

A connected company is a ‘sticky’ company. Emotional connection drives employee engagement by making work feel less like a chore and more like a meaningful, enjoyable contribution. These are jobs people stay in. According to a report by Blueboard, 80% of employees want to work at an organisation where they feel connected to the purpose and the people – and 3 in 5 would consider walking if they didn’t feel connected at work.

5 Keys to Employee Loyalty and Emotional Connection

So what does it take to help your workforce commit and connect? Of course, financial compensation is incredibly important, but it is not the sole factor. Our experience and numerous studies show us that a pay package can’t make up for all other elements of life that fill our cup.

Here are five non-negotiables people need to connect to work, team and organisation:

Emotionally Intelligent Leadership

Emotional intelligence (EQ) is the ability to recognise, understand, and manage emotion in yourself and others. Characterised by empathy, self-awareness, honesty and humility, emotional intelligence is a ‘soft’ skill which provides immense power in the workplace. Whilst technical knowledge is transient, these power skills are based on timeless principles of human effectiveness which are future-proof but difficult to obtain. Emotional intelligence may seem like common sense behaviour, but it’s not necessarily common practice.

That is also why knowledge workers would take an 11% pay cut to work somewhere with emotionally intelligent leadership. These are leaders who navigate adversity with composure, inspire confidence, actively listen and create psychological safety. In the words of Todd Davis, former FranklinCovey Chief People Officer, it is a leader’s role to “communicate to people their worth and potential so clearly that they come to see it in themselves”.

Intentional Inclusivity

Creating an inclusive organisational culture isn’t about doing more, it’s about doing what you’re already doing more inclusively. This requires the skills and courage to identify biases and then take steps to maintain fairness in all leadership tasks, from hiring, delegating, and giving feedback, to celebrating achievements and creating equal opportunity for all.

Meaningful Recognition

Research shows companies that use recognition as a tool for workplace connection are nearly twice (2x)as likely to report that they’ve adequately addressed employee connection challenges than the average organisation.

Peer-to-peer recognition can be even more profound. It encourages self-reflection, promotes interdepartmental understanding, camaraderie, and makes giving credit a habit. Simple moments of gratitude have the power to create a workplace people feel they belong to, both personally and professionally.

Personalised Growth Opportunities

Invest in employees as people with lives outside of work and motivating factors that go beyond toeing the company line. Listening is investing – take note of what your employees actually want and need, rather than presuming. Once leaders understand what makes team members tick, they’re positioned to offer the individualised opportunities for growth that will make them confident about their future- something Gartner’s 2024 HR Priorities Report found that only one in four employees currently feel.

Trust

Last on this list, but certainly not least: Trust. With employees who feel trusted 1.3x more likely to put in their discretionary effort and those who don’t 2.2x more likely to leave, trust is not only a human imperative but an economic driver.

When trust is low, people become suspicious, guard communication, speculate, and disengage. As a result, productivity grinds to a crawl, and costs increase. When trust is high, people become confident, and communication, creativity, and engagement improve. As a result, productivity speeds up, and costs decrease. Ultimately, people stop wasting time and energy second guessing themselves or each other.

Like oxygen, you don’t think about trust when it’s present, but you certainly notice when it’s absent.

Don’t Risk Disconnection

Competitive, forward-thinking companies can’t afford to not take the time to understand, identify gaps and empower grounding connection in an overwhelming world. It doesn’t require grand gestures, just emotionally intelligent leaders who behave with daily intentionality, create psychological safety and care for workers as whole people. 

With the FranklinCovey All Access Pass®, current and future leaders gain access to invaluable resources, a team of experts, and cutting-edge technology that facilitate and drive leadership development within their organisation. Are you ready to start the journey?