Building Community and Sense Of Belonging in Your Company

The modern office is no longer a stressful place where we spend hours working non-stop, instead, it could be a healthy, happy community that adds value to members who belong to it. Building connections between employees is becoming the top concern of HR people.

At the event “Building community and sense of belonging in the workplace”, Ms. Alexis Pham – Chief People Officer at Home Credit Vietnam and more than 60 participants had a lively and interesting discussion about this topic.

The importance of an engaged community at work

Company culture that brings genuine sense of belonging to the staff creates many positive outcomes in terms of productivity, talent acquisition and retention. On the contrary, if employees feel lost, lonely and unbelong, this may lead to dissatisfied customers, and under-performance business results. In fact, when employees feel that “Workplace is fun”, their tendency to perform at their best and stay longer with the company increases. This may sound out of the ordinary compared to what we’re used to know about traditional office environments – serious, well-organized, even stressful and stressful, life only begins after work. Fun and happiness at work is seen as a waste of resources. However, modern corporate culture increasingly shows a close correlation between a happy working culture and employee productivity. Ms. Alexis Pham emphasized that today, the spirit of “workplace is fun” is no longer a waste of money but a right investment.

According to Ms. Alexis Pham, “fun is the new sexy” will be a sustainable social movement, not just a temporary trend. First of all, the impact of the pandemic has dramatically changed employees’ expectations. They value meaning and balance in life more than before, thereby prioritizing family and mental health over unnecessary sacrifices for work. A job is their livelihood, but it is also a tool and opportunity to add value to themself and their society, making life worth living.

In addition, Hybrid working is becoming more and more popular, requiring HR leaders to build a Hybrid community where people only meet 2 or 3 days a week, yet still bond cohesively with each other and with the group. In a traditional office, daily interactions such as morning greetings, having lunch together, meetings outside the office,… can already add value to the bond, but in the Hybrid era, such community interactions will need to be further encouraged when employees only meet 2-3 days, or e-meet the whole time.

Creating a sense of “belonging” in the workplace 

Belongingness is one of the basic psychological needs of people. With herd behavior, people always want to be connected, empathized and desire to belong to a certain place. These traits affect their career choices as well. To attract and retain talent effectively, businesses need to take care of the higher needs of their employees. If the “Belonging” factor is ignored in the employee needs pyramid, it will be difficult to make employees feel happy and satisfied with their current career choice, and at the same time make it more difficult to compete in the recruitment market.

According to Ms. Alexis Pham, there are many factors that make employees feel “belonging” at work, but the 4 most important factors are:

1. Recognition for individual contributions: employees are valued for who they are, are given the opportunity to express their individuality, without having to frame themselves in a standard. Developing policies on Diversity, Equity & Inclusion is one of the important factor that help businesses recognize individual contributions.
2. Opportunities to bond with colleagues: the desire to connect, communicate and sharing with others is always present in each person, if employees can build good relationships with colleagues, have a group of close friends at the company, it will make them feel more attached to the organization. On the other hand, loneliness at work has a significant impact on employee mental health and productivity.
3. Development opportunities: creating opportunities for employees to be trained, mentored and competed is good for their self-development. Employees can recognize if they are becoming a better version of themselves and making progress and that motivate them to stay.
4. Contributions to something meaningful: employees understand the company mission, and that the product creates meaningful contributions to the community. A sense of belonging is formed when employees have a positive reason to work every day.

At Home Credit Vietnam, HR leaders actively build community with relevant programs, DEI policy and campaigns that boost senses of “belonging” to create a happy workplace, and maximize employee development opportunities.

The member community at Dreamplex also enjoys diverse and interesting monthly community activities, corresponding to their interests and development needs. Over the past several months, Dreamplex and FlexOS have successfully organized many Hybrid events with topics ranging from DIY, to soft skills development, allowing members to participate simultaneously from all Dreamplex locations in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh. This new event format both ensures community engagement and is suitable for the Hybrid Working model at Dreamplex.

Dreamplex creates “A Better Day at Work” that perfectly meets the needs of fast-growing companies that understand that their young employees expect more from their workplace. Well-designed private, branded offices, 5-star hospitality-level care and an engaging program of social activities, training & development, and wellbeing initiatives help those companies attract, engage, and retain Millennial and Gen Z talent in Vietnam. Dreamplex has 5 locations across Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. In 2022 and 2023, Dreamplex will be adding three new locations including The UnOffice projects in District 2 and The Campus in District 4.

To learn more about how Dreamplex can help innovative companies of any size offer their teams a Workplace Experience of the future, please contact Daan van Rossum, Chief Executive Officer: daan@dreamplex.co or +84 901489369