Four ways to rebuild your team’s social capital

Have you been back to the office yet?

Between navigating the intricacies of hybrid meetings and ensuring my office visits coordinate with those of my colleagues, I will be the first to admit that the transition hasn’t been easy. We are slowly relearning to interact with each other after two plus years of remote work.

Almost 30 people have joined my team since the beginning of the pandemic, and many of us are now meeting in-person for the first time. Then there are remote team members who may feel excluded as they miss the “in between” meetings experience. Also, hybrid lunches? I am still trying to figure that one out.?

There is no denying that the last two years have fundamentally weakened our work relationships—the social capital built around the proverbial water cooler or grabbing lunch with a colleague. While technology allowed us to maintain our productivity working remotely, we also shifted to transactional interactions—logging on to complete a task or attend a meeting—instead of building and sustaining bonds with our colleagues.

What I have learned over the course of my career is that these relationships matter more than efficiency and productivity. Social capital is the bond that connects us, that allows us to have confidence in our co-workers, and spurs creativity and innovation. It energizes us and motivates us to go above and beyond, to accomplish more than we expected, to love our jobs, and realize our full potential.

In fact, the recent Work Trend Index shows that employees who have thriving relationships with their teammates report greater wellbeing and higher productivity. Moreover, they are less likely to change companies in the year ahead. At a time when over 50% of Gen Z and Millennials are likely to consider changing employers, social capital is more important than ever.

Now, as we continue to bridge the gap between physical and digital workspaces, creating a sense of community will require greater intentionality than ever. Our research found that over 40% of leaders consider relationship building to be the greatest challenge in hybrid or remote work.

As my team is experimenting and learning to navigate the new normal of hybrid, here are some tips to help you optimize in-person and improve virtual time with your team to recoup that social capital we’ve lost over the past two years.

Small talk

What we know: Remember office small talk? Moving to remote work and distributed teams, we’ve lost the informal chit chat in the hallways, break rooms, and coming out of meetings. But these spontaneous moments are crucial for building deeper connections with our colleagues, sharing insights and fostering trust and collaboration.?Studies show that small talk also makes us happier, even when we just chat with strangers on a subway.

Our approach: We try to create small rituals that help us socialize, creating a sense of ongoing team culture. Instead of rushing through the agenda items, we try to start our weekly team meetings and 1:1s catching up on life. How was your weekend? How are your kids? Are you working on anything you need help with? Other creative icebreakers include asking team members to prepare a slide with a funny personal picture or use Polls in Teams to guess two truths and a lie about our team members. We?change our Teams backgrounds to show a photo of what we did over the weekend or share a dream vacation destination, prompting questions and interaction.

Kudos, and Vanilla Lattes

What we know: Social capital revolves around feeling valued. Praise makes us feel good (think dopamine!), which leads to higher motivation, and sense of belonging. Moreover, positive feedback and recognition are among the top priorities for the new-to-the workplace Gen Zs who often struggle to feel engaged and excited in the remote and hybrid environments, according to our research.

Our approach: We take the time during meetings to reach out and give praise where it is deserved. Teams apps such as Praise make it easy to give kudos, send shoutouts, and spread the good vibes of esteem across the entire team.?Take the Starbucks app in Teams as another useful tool. You can buy your teammates a cup of coffee, the way we used to when we were all in the same building. This is a small but vital acknowledgment of their worth to you. It’s a way of saying thank you, I see you, and I value your contributions. Here’s an Iced Toasted Vanilla Oatmilk Latte on me.

To come in, or not to come in, that is the question

What we know: It’s no secret that building social capital is easier in person. And while many of us valued getting our “time back” that previously was spent commuting, now we want to make sure the days when we do come into the office are “worth it.” But more than a third of hybrid employees say their biggest challenge is knowing when and why to come into the office. Yet just 28% of companies have established team agreements to clearly define the new norms.

Our approach: We’ve developed Team Agreements that define our expectations and team members’ preferences like work hours, synchronous versus asynchronous collaboration and more. While hybrid is our default mode, we set optional “anchor” days in office, (e.g., Tuesdays & Thursdays) for in office work so we know that some of our teammates will be there. We also encourage in-person gatherings for special events such as our quarterly Team Week offsite to help team members who live outside the Redmond area build lasting bonds that sustain during remote work.

Cross-pollinating our way to creativity

What we know: Last year’s Work Trend Index revealed that teams became more siloed – we leaned on those we work with most in a time of stress and change. But in doing so, we allowed our wider networks to dwindle. Why is that important? When you only build bonds within those familiar pathways, you miss out on synergies which can occur from introducing new contacts, new ideas, and new ways of thinking.?

Our approach: We focus on creating connections with people who are not within our immediate work group, and this drives serendipitous synergy. For example, during our offsite last month, we organized “hackathons” that brought together disparate marketing groups to “hack” specific business challenges. Creating new ideas and possible solutions wasn’t the only goal—building bonds across teams was the real win. We also use technology to facilitate cross-pollination across various work groups with Breakout Rooms in Teams when we’re working remotely. In fact, some of my most successful all-hands meetings have involved discussions on a specific topic where we break out into random groups of people to problem solve together.?

Looking forward

All the things we loved about being present in person are slowly returning, but in different ways. While we look forward to team-building events, happy hours, and in-person coffee breaks, the challenge is to make sure that social capital is garnered and maintained in hybrid work. As technology continues to evolve, I can’t wait to share new innovations that will help us build relationships and deeper connections with our colleagues (think metaverse), no matter where they are. Stay tuned!