The importance of connection

Do you feel connected at work? What does connection mean to you?

Long days of back-to-back virtual meetings are not fun for anyone. Feeling connected, engaged, and interacting in virtual meetings can be hard and draining on your energy. If at the end of these days you are feeling flat, you are not alone.

There is a significant difference when you connect with people face to face. You are more present making it easier to communicate effectively, and it improves your ability to listen.

Having a strong relationship with your work colleagues may not only improve your effectiveness and productivity but also enable you to feel satisfied, engaged, and energised.

Create space and take time to think about:

How do you feel right now with connection in the workplace?

How important is connection in the workplace to you?

What difference do you think it could make to your relationships?

What difference could it make to your own personal effectiveness?

If you need to put some focus on connection, here are some areas to explore:

• If your connection preference is professional, find opportunities to work with others on a project or tasks

• Look for opportunities to increase your connection, make it a priority

• Be flexible, adapt and tailor your approach with people

• Find common ground, be open and relatable

• Make an effort to work in the office, even if you have flexible arrangements

• Use your exceptional communication skills, especially active listening

• Build a fun question into your meetings to connect more on a personal level

• Look for ways to connect outside of work (team dinner)

• Stay curious, ask more open questions

• Use humour to connect

Building better connections will take time and effort but is well worth it. Think about how good it feels when you have connected with close friends over the weekend. Now imagine having a similar feeling at work and the difference it would make to your day.