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Solutions For More Community At Work?
CrunkCreeper writes "I work at a tier-2 hosting company (SAP, web servers, Citrix, databases, etc.). I started working at this location two years ago in January. The company had anywhere from 20-30 other employees, and now we are just over 100. People with all different IT experience are employed. At one end of the spectrum, you have accounting, billing, and sales. At the other end you have the help desk, analysts, and engineers. In the past we were hiring mainly people in their 20s, and now we're hiring more senior people in their 30s and 40s. Incidentally with our expanded demographic and recently aggressive hiring, people are not as familiar with each other as they used to be. This happens to some extent and will continue to happen more the larger our company grows, but I would like to curb the corporate feel a bit. I'm trying to bring family or community feel back to the company. The reason for this need is that great ideas are normally discussed in non-formal environments. Beside this fact, I want people to genuinely have more fun and decrease the sometimes uncomfortable discussions with 'that guy' from 'that department.' Being an IT company, I find it more natural for collaboration via computer, but welcome more traditional methods too. How does your company keep or build a community environment using technology?" Read on for some more on how it works at CrunkCreeper's workplace, and give suggestions for how to make things better.
" Here is what we currently use for collaboration, both formal and non-formal:
IRC — We have used a dedicated IRC server from the start, and it helps out tremendously when people use it (the Linux folks use it heavily), but it doesn't entice a vast majority of the employees. It's used mainly for BS'ing, but also becomes a very important tool when things are awry.
Facebook — Most people are on Facebook, but obviously there are details about the company that cannot be discussed, which is an issue since most of these profiles are public and it is a somewhat common practice to be friends with some clients.
Exchange 2007 — E-mail is the main source of communication, but can't it be painful sometimes? Everyone on the IT side receives alerts about tickets and other automated checks of systems. On any given day I generally receive 100+ alert messages. When we're not reading our filtered alerts into specified folders, general discussion about projects and fixing issues usually is anywhere from 20-60 messages a day. Quite honestly, I'm sick of e-mail and don't wish to get any more of it. I know a lot of you feel the same way.
Phone — Just using the ol' phone is the other primary way of communicating with the customer, but not ideal for communicating ideas with others at the same time. We have bridges, but they're only used for conferences with customers.
Company Meetings — We have these a few times a year. They're fully catered and consist of introducing the new people, talking about new contracts, and congratulating others on successful implementations . These generally last about an hour or so at the end of the workday. Unfortunately dedicating to these meetings is not the easiest on people's schedules, especially the help desk, and is not an open forum.
There are forms of collaboration that I have been thinking of. To list some, there is phpBB, Elgg, Jabber (discussed a few times before), and Google Wave (hard to push currently). Personally I think that a closed social networking platform would be ideal, where ideas can be posted and read at any time. Tell me what you think of these ideas, if there are more suitable solutions, or what you use at work."
IRC — We have used a dedicated IRC server from the start, and it helps out tremendously when people use it (the Linux folks use it heavily), but it doesn't entice a vast majority of the employees. It's used mainly for BS'ing, but also becomes a very important tool when things are awry.
Facebook — Most people are on Facebook, but obviously there are details about the company that cannot be discussed, which is an issue since most of these profiles are public and it is a somewhat common practice to be friends with some clients.
Exchange 2007 — E-mail is the main source of communication, but can't it be painful sometimes? Everyone on the IT side receives alerts about tickets and other automated checks of systems. On any given day I generally receive 100+ alert messages. When we're not reading our filtered alerts into specified folders, general discussion about projects and fixing issues usually is anywhere from 20-60 messages a day. Quite honestly, I'm sick of e-mail and don't wish to get any more of it. I know a lot of you feel the same way.
Phone — Just using the ol' phone is the other primary way of communicating with the customer, but not ideal for communicating ideas with others at the same time. We have bridges, but they're only used for conferences with customers.
Company Meetings — We have these a few times a year. They're fully catered and consist of introducing the new people, talking about new contracts, and congratulating others on successful implementations . These generally last about an hour or so at the end of the workday. Unfortunately dedicating to these meetings is not the easiest on people's schedules, especially the help desk, and is not an open forum.
There are forms of collaboration that I have been thinking of. To list some, there is phpBB, Elgg, Jabber (discussed a few times before), and Google Wave (hard to push currently). Personally I think that a closed social networking platform would be ideal, where ideas can be posted and read at any time. Tell me what you think of these ideas, if there are more suitable solutions, or what you use at work."
One thing I cannot stress enough is to hire culturally Americanized workers. Younger, um, "ethnic" workers are more likely to be Americanized if they have served in the American military or are at least second-generation immigrants. The clarity and fluency of their English is a good indicator of their desirability.
Do not hire first-generation Asian, African, or Latino immigrants unless they were already Westernized elsewhere. First-generation immigrants' cultural traits are generally undesirable. They are impossible to communicate with and that alone reduces overall productivity. They are very xenophobic and they will congregate into their respective groups and, in their native language, will badmouth and gossip* about everybody who is not like they are.
There is a lot of cultural B.S. involved. For example - at a very F.O.B.-dominated company I worked at, the boss was very short. Being short is very undesirable for a male in that boss' culture, so all of the caucasians sat on the floor so as not to tower over him and make things awkward. Fuck that, man. In the modern American workplace the boss would make jokes about his shortness and everybody would respect him for it.
Now that that's out of the way, do not feel upset if everybody dosen't want to be bestest buddies with each other. Many people just aren't social or they compartmentalize their work and play behavior. They're there to work, not to gossip about Donna's rack at the water cooler. In my experience, company meetings are only two things - free food and being forced to hear the latest rah-rah bullshit propaganda from leadership who would lay me off if cutting one more head adds a few hundred to their bonus.
* Many of you will say I just did that. That shit's okay when venting anonymously online. It's not okay in the modern American workplace.
There are many enterprise social software tools now available, such as http://lotuslive.com
For chemists, solutions are things that are all mixed up!
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
Its simple,get a water cooler
Jack of all trades,master of none
I found internal wikis to be a huge boost at my old job. At my current job everyone seems to do similar things using word files passed around over email which are like islands in the sea of information, easy to lose, easy to become outdated, etc.
Maybe it's just me, but I don't go to work for "community". Don't get me wrong; I like what I do and we are all cordial at work and everything, but at the end of the day I don't really want to be your friend. Maybe this makes me "that guy", but that's fine with me; I just prefer to keep the professional and personal aspects of my life as separate as possible.
Back before everybody at work had internet access we had newsgroups. Then I installed mediawiki, mainly for work, but you could use it for anything. Then somebody took a dislike to newsgroups and replaced it with phpbb (which I dislike) then about the same time external internet access was switched on and I pretty much stopped talking online with my co-workers.
But if you want to have a work community start an online community on an external system. Let people from work log on but don't associate it with the work place. Personally there are a few people I work with who I would choose to socialise with, but the rest I would rather have as little to do with as possible.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Getting a decision made was almost impossible, as *everyone* had to be consulted, included and involved in every department, for every action (or so it felt like) - just in case it would affect them, and so they didn't feel "excluded". However, once you start asking for people's opinions they all feel obliged to offer something, or to make a suggestion, or to ask if you've considered some other (no matter how dumb) alternatives. Whatever answers you give, you end up offending someone.
Better to have a place with a degree of compartmentalisation, but with professionalism and trust so that sometimes or most-times you can JFDI without having to spend 6 months tip-toeing around, trying to build a consensus from people who don't have the depth of specialisation that you have.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
A room with a coffee machine, one or two tables and some up-to-date newspaper will make people sit during their break and talk about the news.
Bring the new hires in and then rotate them through each department/group in the company. Give them a day at each location to see what goes on there and meet/interact/tag along behind the group. It might take a week or two to get them through the entire company, but you will end up on a first name basis with most people and have a better appreciation for what their job entails.
Back in the "old days" employees organized golf, bowling, softball, or whatever leagues. Even something like a fantasy football league that only meets a few times a year will help people get to know each other.
I work for a small company where all but two of the employees work remotely from our homes. We are an engineering-consulting company and are very dependent upon each other for we each have very different skill-sets. Here is my impression on how it works for us;
1. The hiring process is very prolonged, taking weeks and multiple interviews with many people. Only part of this is for the technical skills necessary to do the kind of work we do. The interview process is to make sure that our new hires are cultural fits into our work model and are capable of self-starting and have initiative.
2. We keep in contact constantly by telephone, GoToMeeting, email and collaborative work assignments.
3. While we have owners who are also employees we work in a very dynamic manner. It is not unusual for a very new person to be the senior of a manager/owner on certain projects.
4. We all share the same goals for our company. We know what is happening, what is important at the moment and the need to be completely flexible.
As we grow more we are certain to eventually develop some sort of central office but the heart and soul of the company will be spread across the company.
Tisha Hayes
Nerf Guns
As an older guy in your scenario (40ish), I'd have to say that I don't want to socialize more with most of my co-workers unless there is a charge number in it. As with the rest of life my desire to be around my co-workers follows the 80/20 rule. In this case, about 80% of my co-workers should not be near me without a charge-number.
Sheldon
and take a barista class. a couple classes in rebellions and revolutions 101, too. and perhaps some study of war, peace, and public speaking. shoot the computers.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
100+ emails a day from automated checks? Talk to whomever set these checks up and they surely will help you curtail the flow. I've been in "automated monitoring" for years and usually when people get a lot of email it's because:
- The monitoring system performing these checks hasn't been tended to for awhile
- People become passive with email alerts because they can filter them into email boxes (ignored or glanced at once a day/week), causing the problem to get worse as time passes because "I get all this email all the time, but I can easily ignore it, so I hardly notice 2x more"
- Some people/companies/groups LOVE setting an alert in an automated system and blasting out every alert to an email distribution list because it's easy to maintain....and then people get used to all this junk automated alerts filling up their inboxes...then they filter them/delete them off.
- Some people love getting all that spam because they think they're "staying informed" on what's going on. In reality they just use it as their own personal database when things go south so they aren't the one guy/manager who didn't know there was xyz outage when upper management asks them.
Having said all that, I would say to have all these alerts be posted on something "central" that all of IT (and management) can just look at whenever they want to know what's going on with the systems when something arises. If they're willing to use it, that *might* quickly bring everyone together/up to speed, at least when things go south, and keep some sort of communal feel that everyone is supporting the "entire company" as opposed to "my stuff, which is always the most important". It could keep the junk mail down as well.
People will get along with people they know they are going to be working with for a long, long time. People aren't going to form emotional attachments to people who may mysteriously vanish from their cubicals after the next quarterly results. Older workers know the game ... the younger ones are still naive about what lays ahead.
In Santa Cruz, it is customary for employees at high tech companies to have a few beers at a local pub after work on Friday, grab some dinner and then head to the CEOs or VPs house for naked hot tubbing. It's a great way to get to know each other and and no one has anything to hide. SCO even had their own hot tub in the office court yard.
I've worked in several startup companies that grew quickly. You can't *make* people want to get to know each other or spend more time together. You're fighting the natural changes that happen when a company starts getting bigger. Implementing technology will not solve the problem you're trying to address. If you really want people to know each other and interact, then find ways for them to spend face time with each other. Host parties, organize events at local bars, have some group lunches, etc.
I'm trying to bring family or community feel back to the company.
Whenever I hear the term "family" being used at or for a place of business my cynical thoughts start to run amok.
For one thing, aside from very screwed up and sad situations, your family is always your family. A business has you as family until the next downsizing or the next CEO comes in and due to global competition, sends you and a bunch of others away. Many times the "family" cover is an excuse to pay you less.
Secondly, in a family, I can be my weird quirky self. I can get mad, I can shout, I can be a bigot, I can tease without it turning into an HR problem and I can make self-effacing jokes without someone taking me seriously. I can ask about sleep issues, depression, or other things and be comfortable and NOT have to worry about it affecting my status in the family.
In a business environment, I have to put on airs, I have to hide parts of myself, swallow my anger some when incompetent jerk screws me over, I can't be honest and say "I fucked up, but let me fix it" - that'll get me fired.
Yes, I've heard of companies that in the past have done some very nice things for employees, DuPont for one, and they actually called their employees family, but I ask you, how many "family members" that worked for DuPont got to share in the billions of dollars that the patriarch left when he died? I didn't think so.
Anyone who equates family with employment has a very different idea of what family is than what I do.
Your problem is that you don't see much between Facebook and a fully catered company outing.
Once a month, a volunteer from every department gets the department to go to a local bar or local eating establishment. If they're lucky, the manager will cover half the costs, the grunts pick up the rest. My manager orders a few pitchers of Shiner Bock and a few appetizer plates and asks for $5 from everybody. Not everybody attends, and there's more than one person who doesn't drink alcohol, but they have O'Douls or whatever monstrosity, so they're placated.
Of course, the word "volunteer" is important. Once one person does this in one department, and they get to talking, hopefully another department will pick up too. If two departments complete a big project, then two departments can get together and maybe the other one will think it's a good idea and try to do it too.
None of the things that I see mentioned will really help build community or get people to know each other. To do that, you need to setup an informal environment where people can relax. An all-hands company meeting can never be that. One company I worked at used to have some sort of celebration a few times a year. For example, they would have an Oktoberfest thing with free beer and snacks on a Friday afternoon. Other events were summer barbeques and ice cream socials.
All of these things encourage people to talk with others outside their department in an informal way. This can foster communication and collaboration during business hours and is actually pretty cheap to put on. Not everything needs to have a technical solution.
If a company uses Active Directory and Exchange, I try to set them up with DirectoryUpdate to keep AD updated with names, phone#'s, org chart, photos.
The best ideas are the one you have yourself. These are the ones you remember. These are the ones that charge you enough emotionally that you're willing to act on them.
No one likes being manipulated into a system, into a different way of doing things. If you try to "impose" an "open, community environment" it will most likely backfire. However if you approach the people you want to include, present the problem to them and LISTEN to their suggestions, you're likely to get better results. Don't think of "one ideal method" for everyone because people are different - culturally, socially and in terms of personality. Some people respond to some things, and others need other things. Remember that when you're dealing with populations and biological systems (like human beings), you are always dealing with the normal, bell or Gauss curve. There will be the anti-socials on one side who will never get involved no matter how hard you try (but they're probably damned good at their job, which is why they're there). There will be the extroverts on the other end, who are great at socializing and networking and becoming the boss' pet and when you sit back and actually analyze the quality of the work they do, hmm, well... but they're such good friends and they probably already have some sort of "community" going.
Then there's everyone else somewhere along the middle.
Don't kid yourself into thinking you are going to change human nature. There will always be friction. There will always be office politics. There will always be resentment and jealousy. That is called humanity. However you will learn the needs of the people you are trying to help by listening to them, not by dreaming up some "method" on your own that you will force them to adopt.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Alcohol
As you get more and more people involved it's only natural for things to get colder. Human beings aren't built to get close to everybody , most can only "handle" a certain amount of friends.
You can certainly try to make them all get along with various teambuilding activities , parties and the like , and that will help to some extent , but you can't force them to feel close to one another. After all you can't offer 10 people the same amount of time you could offer 5 , if you were to divide it equally.
The only thing you can do is hope that people working in the same team will start to bond while at the same time not gather any negative sentiments towards other teams.
The best way you can do that ? Make sure everybody is doing their job right _and_ not pissing all over other people's job.
Example Case : You've got the IT service guys fixing everything up , cleaning all the viruses from the network, but the rest of them can't be bothered to remember one secure password to their account.
IT will hate everyone for making their job more difficult than it should be , and everybody will hate the IT workers because they caught them on a bad day and got shouted at.
Another thing I've found helpful is having a friendly face pop in and ask if there's any unresolved issues in any department or if there's any improvement that can be made. This person can't always be their direct boss , people get scared of talking about things that bother them to people that have a say over their future.
In the end all these people are only there for one thing , their job. Make sure they can do it as easily as possible , and as good as they can and you'll see people getting along.
What pisses people off the most is _wasting their time_ even if they're getting paid for that waste time it will hurt them and they will take it out on others. At the same time don't force them to pretend their having fun if their not , that just annoys people further
Now since they're all trying to do their job , if you can show them that it would be easier if they worked together , that would help even more. GIve them the proper tools to collaborate and help each other and they'll all thank you for it.
There problem here is that you are using the same tool for two very different tasks - conversations and notifications. These are different tasks that should fit into your workflow in different ways. I find email much more pleasant if I use email for talking to people, and offload as many notifications as possible into Atom/RSS feeds.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
As a SENIOR staff member @55, it "resemble" that remark! IBM use to promote work at home, home at work. Don't know if they still do. More lip service anyway. My advice is not to get too chummy (overtly) at the work place, making it too family oriented is not all good. Keep the work professional and "on task" keeps folk as better more productive workers and happier, of all age mixes. Yes, you can still have fun but your there to your job to do. It also helps to keep the inevitable work place politics to a minimum.
Please mod me 1 or troll. It's where the truth is these days, even on Slashdot. Beware the power of moderators everywh
Bring beer.
It's been the traditional way for IT people to communicate since at least the Stone Age.
"Facebook" "Chat" "Meetings" Are you kidding? You want real communication? Real feedback? Beer and a whiteboard.
One thing to do is help the people who aren't used to it get set up with it, and set up multiple channels, so people know how to set up smaller chat groups. I am usually on about 8 channels on the work IRC server. There's a couple of functional groups ("people who work on feature X"), a couple of corporate structure groups ("people who report to manager Y"), at least one physical group ("people in office Z"), and a few others for things like "no managers" or "only people who don't care whether you're PC".
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Most companies I've ever work for especially in the US think its OK to put their employees in conditions you wouldn't keep an animal in.
If you want people to feel good about working there then the first thing is to make the office a nice environment to be in.
Get rid of dehumanising things like cubes, dress codes for people that never face clients, institutional wall and floor colours, and especially kill that horrible strip lighting that most offices use. Get some plants, shared spaces with comfortable furniture and as much natural daylight or eyestrain-friendly lighting in the place as you can.
My previous company made a practice of hosting several events a year... one of which was a family inclusive event. Totally optional, of course, but since at least 50% of the employees did have family, participation was fairly high. This even could be anything, although some years it got pretty nice (trip to local amusement park, etc.)
The remaining events were employee-centric... a BBQ in the parking lot, a afternoon at the bowling alley, and so forth. This kind of activity provided a place outside of work to socialize with other employees.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
It use to be popular, but IT bust and recession means you don't see team building outings. Best I ever went on was a half day sailing on the harbour - large boat, team effort required, introductory sailing. A couple of people already knew what they were doing and shared the knowledge with the newbs. Only problem is that's just one day and can be expensive. Team sports last longer, but can lead to time off work due to injury. What you basically need to do is get people doing something they ENJOY together rather than just the work. People tend to genuinely give a shit about people they spend leisure time with.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
... brought to you by the Department of Community Relations (formerly HR)
drop down to the level where you have groups of say 30 people now ask whomever is in charge of that level to answer the following WITHOUT CONSULTING HR OR A SECRETARY
for each employee
1 what is this persons full name?
2 what does this person like to be called?
3 is this person married? To Whom?
4 numbers and names of children?
5 noteable skills of said children
6 schools attended by said children
7 noteable skills of the employee not related to the business
8 noteable skills of the employeee related to but not currently used by the business
9 this employee normally drives a _________
if you can't answer some of those questions that would be your problem
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
You actually hit this nail on the head.
The submitter entirely misses the point when he asks "How does your company keep or build a community environment using technology?"
Answer: YOU DON'T!
You build a community through SOCIAL ACTIVITY! That means get rid of as much technology as possible.
There is no single answer here, as it's going to depend a lot on culture. One thing that will definitely not work in Utah is to stock beer in the fridges and on the occasional Friday afternoon have managers pull their groups into a free-beer (or beverage of choice) activity. Or twice a year blow a paid day and have everyone go somewhere as a company outing.
No matter what you do, the most important part is LEAVE THE TECHNOLOGY IN THE CUBE!
paintball
how playing games over the network with each other?
or other fun stuff like poker (play for fun)
Take everyone to see "Alice in Wonderland" when it comes out, during the workday, over two days so the work gets done. Preferably to a theater that has table service.
Even better strip poker!
It's simple really -- the same way you build up relationships with people outside the office -- around food and drink.
Things that have worked very successfully at my workplace (not all in place at the same time over the years):
- Friday Beer Bash. 3PM on Fridays (or most Fridays) have a self-sponsored beer bash. A few volunteers buy beer, some non-alcoholic beverages, and some chips/cookies etc. Everyone is invited to come, sit, and visit. Everyone is expected to chip in a couple bucks toward the food.
- Donuts. A set of people gets together at the same time in the morning once a week (Friday at 8AM when we did it) for donuts in the conference room. This isn't a "come grab a donut and go back to your office/cube" thing, but sit around the conference room and talk about anything and everything (work related or not). The participants are on a rotation to bring donuts, milk, and juice, paying out of their own pocket whenever their rotation comes around.
- Grilling. Pitch in together to buy a grill (or get one donated by someone, or the company). During months where the weather is nice enough, grill lunch outside, everyone bringing their own items to grill that day. Probably do this once a week. Organize payment for propane/charcoal however makes sense (chip in a buck once a week/etc).
- Cooking contests. An annual brownie contest, chili and cornbread contest, etc. A panel of employee judges gets to judge the contest, or everyone in attendance votes for their favorites. Have some sort of small prizes for the top three (e.g. small gift cards), funded however makes sense (company, entrance fee, proceeds from employees chipping in at the door to cover extras like beverages).
- Often the "self-sponsored" events above (beer bash, grilling, donuts if you choose to do it that way) end up generating more cash than actual costs. Whenever the amount builds up to a sufficient level, have a "free" pizza/whatever lunch paid out of the proceeds.
- Not quite a food thing, more of a beer thing, but start up a bowling league, company softball team, or something like that that gets people from different departments to join up around a common interest.
Cyrano de Maniac
You are fighting an impossible cause. We aren't designed to know and care about this many people. If you intend to let your business grow beyond 10 individuals (Yes! Ten. Those people each have at least 3 people they care about, making the minimum count 30 already) then you will fail to accomplish what you are looking for. More importantly, if some of them fall for it and begin to trust others at the office, they run the risk of being *deceived by someone they are attempting to trust*, while at work. You will have effectively attached their desire to work there to the outcome of any one relationship they build at work. If *one* relationship goes sour, the person is that more likely to leave altogether. This is why you want all relationships to "not mean anything" at work. It's important to the business.
Other than that, best of luck.
http://www.cracked.com/article_14990_what-monkeysphere.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar's_number
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
[citation needed]
Divide a cake by zero. Is it still a cake?
If you want to really get to know your coworkers, organize some sort of event with alcohol. (Caveat being make sure HR / CEO / Managers are cool with this first.)
This doesn't have to be a big formal thing or anything. Just send off an e-mail saying "There'll be a bunch of beers and some wine over in [common area] at 3:30pm this [good day of the week when people are actually around]! Come hang out and get to know your co-workers!" Maybe set up a big TV with Guitar Hero or some sort of video game that is both enjoyable to watch and to play.
One of two things will happen. If you're lucky you'll get a few people to show up and have a good time. Others might hear people laughing and chatting and go over to join. Have a few of these, once a month perhaps or more often if it seems appropriate, and hopefully more and more people will show up. It helps if your common area is a place that's a bit removed from the working area so people can't easily slip back to their desks.
If you're unlucky, you'll find out that you work with a bunch of boring people / former alcoholics who want nothing to do with it and you might be SOL. Years ago when my company was a much smaller start up, most Fridays someone would come around with a keg or a few cases of cold beers on a wagon. Was a great way to get people to have a bit of fun. We also did wine tasting events fairly regularly where people could sign up to bring either cheese or wine and would get paired up a day ahead of time to try to match things up. You need to make sure you have at least a few people who are willing to spend a few bucks on decent bottles for this to work. Or hell, drop a bit on your own and see if people show up. For the more hardcore offices, whiskey tastings work too.
I'm sure there's a lot of other great ideas out there, but I've had great success over the last decade with plying my co-workers with booze. Try it!
Nowhere, EVER, does "America" refer to an entire continent. That's because there is a North America and a South America. "The Americas" can refer to both continents combined, or if you want to stretch it, even "America" can refer to both continents combined.
But context matters. When using English, "America" in the singular almost always means "United States of America". Especially in comments on a website based in the US.
Not that the rest of the GP's post makes any sense.....
paintball
Nobody gets close working on work-related projects. It's the non-work things you have in common with people that makes them something other than their position. Unfortunately, you can't force this from the top, and your HR department can't be tasked with making everybody like each other*. You will need to get the ball rolling for extracurricular clubs. Note: this will cost company time, both when you set it up, and every time an event occurs. Golfers and bowlers will leave 10 minutes early to hit the links/lanes, and then waste another 20 minutes the next morning discussing the particulars of the event. It's worth it - worth every dollar.
Sports: Golf, bowling, flag football, (insert other sports as appropriate)
Arts: Dinner/show clubs (you provide busses, if possible), singing groups (a holiday chorus that sings at local events or ret. homes)
Environmental/Community Service groups
Anything where you have a group of people that cuts across the company (i.e. - no correlation to work stuff) is good.
Help out with meeting space, minor cost items (weekly gift for lowest foursome, maybe a small trophy at the end, a room for group meetings or practices), but mostly leave them alone. If you meddle, it will backfire.
Finally, understand that there will be some people who completely separate work from play - they're there for a paycheck, and have no desire to interact. Offer them inclusion, but mostly let them be.
*The "company picnic" is about the worst function ever to try and engender camaraderie. You throw people together who interact in smaller groups, with interest completely apart from the activities you will provide.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
At a previous employer they had a few lunch-centric policies that I think worked out well.
The first was you had to have lunch with one of the two founders to get an offer - this had the added benefit that the owners knew you, and you knew (atleast one of) them, you'd feel connected instantly.
The second was that once you started working, your coworkers were encouraged to take you out to lunch on the companies dime. It only lasted for one week, but during that week you would be the most desirable lunch companion in the company, and you're bound to make a few friends that first week.
Lunch isn't the answer for everything, but it worked in the company I used to work at (I joined as employee 53, stayed with them past employee number 200, and the policy remained in-tact those ther/four years.
Ken
technology isn't very good for a "community environment", usually quite the reverse. People sending emails when they could be getting up and talking face-to-face (or at least using the telephone) is a bug-bear for many people and many organisations actively discourage it.
Forums have no more value than email, it just doesn't pop up on your screen when you're trying to work. Instant messengers are merely an even worse form of email, because they positively demand an instant response and at best you get cliques forming (it's an exclusive, not inclusive form of communication).
Facebook does have some advantages, but mostly for colleagues who are already friends - if I had to join my work's Facebook there's no way I'd be using by real profile (despite approaching Facebook with the assumption that anybody I might not want to be reading it is doing so). A work Facebook is more like a collaborative newsletter - people put their carefully selected and sanitised holiday snaps up, in order to be seen to be contributing while offering nothing of any real social or community value.
If you want community and a social work environment, be social. Have a good Christmas event. Recognise that having a couple of very gregarious people on staff is important. Keep a small pot of money to fund staff excursions - BBQ, paintball, karting, whatever, maybe with a bus so they can drink. Those gregarious people will probably be very good at organising these. The relatively social and friendly senior management can come sometimes, but make a timely exit when people look like they want to behave as they do with friends rather than as they do in front of the boss.
People have modded the "get a water cooler" comment funny. Funny because it's so true.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
On the technology side, get SharePoint Server with Office Communication Server. Both integrate with Outlook & Exchange and provide ample collaboration and chat capabilities and would give you the internal social networking feel you want, if you design it too.
On the real world, here is what some companies I have worked for have done.
-At work "olympics". Find some dumb tasks or events and have competitions for them. It may seem dumb, but people have fun.
-Regular company outings. - Softball tournements, bowling, paintball, amusement parks, etc
-At the company Christmas party, arrange people's seating so they are sitting at a table with people they do not work with so they are forced to mingle
-Have beer day. At one company I worked at (about 50 people) we'd have beer friday's where we'd all chip in for a couple cases of beer and sit around for the last hour of the day relaxing. It was mandatory to stay. Either you stayed and worked, or you hung out with everyone else, you didn't have to drink.
-Have pot lucks... Everyone brings something and everyone eats.
I'm trying to set up a community in my city, starting from my church. It's going well!!
I've noticed that the first thing you need is to organise a meal at set times to eat together. Good food and time together. That works. You can talk and really meet eachother.
But it's useful to have a audacious person among your group, who will just walk to the people he/she doesn't know and start talking to them uninhibitedly, and invite them, and make them part of the conversation.
Also, some form of contact (web forum maybe?) and transportation so people can keep in touch and help eachother out with different things. (One guy knows how to fix your bike, another girl has a van and can help you move, you can look after someone's child and so on)
Make sure there's a list available with everyone's contact information - and pictures! if it's a large group with people who don't know eachother - which is spread among everyone, so everyone can reach eachother.
Then there's prayer, but I guess that's a religious thing which won't apply in most companies :) But there's another thing which is in the same category - taking care of eachother - and very universally humanistic, not religious at all: giving. You put a pot somewhere in a not very visible spot where people can give some money for the poor. It is remarkable how much this binds people together.
Forget irc/facebook and any computer related stuffs.
I would suggest these:
- billards table, darts, mahjong etc..
- wii, ps3
- cards (with chips)
- stick hockey table (make tournaments for fun)
It works.
StatusNet is a neat platform that runs Identica, a twitter alternative. It's free as in freedom (GNU AGPL), and it has pretty much every feature twitter has and more. You can view conversations people have instead of searching for hours for who-responded-to-what-and-how-many-people-were-involved. You can customize the theme and upload files, too! There's lots of other optional features you can use as well, and it has a similar API to twitter, so lots of applications already support it. Try it out and see if it works for you; you can even chose where it's hosted!
"Our country is not nearly so overrun with the bigoted as it is overrun with the broadminded." -Archbishop Fulton Sheen
If you can get people involved in picnics, contests, sports teams, perhaps a company band, you will have a close community with little turnover. It is important that much of these activities take place after work or on weekends so that social life and work become more welded together. For example with 100 employees you will be having birthdays every week. Make that cake ritual part of the Saturday ball game and announce the birthday will be held at the ballgame on the actual birthday. That way you save distraction at work and still honour the employee and also steer him to attend the company ball game. Also be sure not to discourage employee dating as that also can bind people to a company.
Firstly, I congratulate you for your caring enough about taking on the issue.
However, I think it is worthwhile to ask (if you, like most companies, have not already considered) whether employees have enough incentive to really want to work together in your company.
If companies gave a share of the profits to every employee in the company, not only would those employees have a stake at being more polite to clients, more innovative, etc., they would also see that their own interests were tied up in the interests of the other employees. It wouldn't be us-vs-them as far as other departments, or me-vs-them, it would foster working together, and a sense of ownership in the company, especially if the company also regularly consults with and consider the employees as part owners in decision-making.
When the employees stand to gain from greater cohesion, executives aren't solely responsible for attempting rah-rah motivation that encourages them to do so. No executive would join or stick around with a company which wasn't rewarding him or her, so executives need to stop thinking they are in a special class of people who are inherently motivated for grander things like team-work and service.
Just because one hopes employees will just naturally have an ethic to work in the interests of the company--including fostering good relations with other co-workers--doesn't mean they will.
Too many companies assume that only executives are worthy of enticing with a share of the company's profits, or they make the program opt-in or dependent on the employee spending some of their own money, while some of the strongest benefits may come from there literally being collective ownership by everyone (at least as far as having a share of the profits and some decision making). Everyone has reason to work together, beyond the inherent but more elusive rewards for doing so.
While this might not be your company's issue, and while the suggestion may only seem tangentially related to your question, ensuring people are motivated for the fundamental reason most choose to be with a company (and to work at all) really needs to be taken into account before they will be more productive and more interested in collaborating and feeling at home at work.
Capitalism has it right when it recognizes people need incentives, but oddly, such incentives haven't been adequately brought to the common people who might otherwise be wooed by communism. Many executives today actually come off as rather communistic in assuming people should just work for the benefit of the "state" (corporation). They insist that workers should just be satisfied with a salary and fear of losing their job, and that this should be enough to motivate anyone. It isn't.
To reference Slashdot canonical authority, note that one of the serious moments in the film Office Space was when the main character is asked whether having a share of the profits would motivate him, and he actually admits it might.
Not a one of you apparently has any experience in creating a "culture" (I'd even challenge you to DEFINE "culture" in a productive and operational way). Every /.er seems to have an opinion, as if their experience is universal. It is to laugh.
... AND a "recovering shrink.")
Creating a "Community" is a very worthy goal, and I've done it dozens of times with F500 businesses. Creating an over-arching "Culture" is a bit more difficult, but I just did it for a 120-person not-for-profit here in California..
To start with, you need to have some grounding in communications and behavior...and I don't mean Psych101; I'm talking about someone at the level of a Ph.D. You need to assess what's working, and what's not, and be able to distinguish the difference. Then, you need to work with anyone and everyone to define what you'd LIKE to be in the future..
Are people there for the paycheck? You don't have a chance. Does management consider "People" a bother and excessively expensive? No chance..
But, even in a dispirited organization, it is possible, despite what some of the people in here say. It's not trivial, but the journey is most assuredly worthwhile..
If you'd like to discuss it further, I'd be happy...but not in this forum, populated with people who don't even understand the language of the art. (And, yes, I'm a "recoverying geek"
Start off by giving everybody an iPad, the rest will follow automatically!
One of the best ways to bring workers together is to hate the boss. Nothing builds cohesion like having a common enemy. It helps if you have a Pointy Headed boss, but even modestly bad behavior on the part of an authority figure will do. Not only can you complain at work, but it will give you a common topic of conversation away from the office; you can go out for breaks of after work to talk trash.Try it, you'll like it.
Why is Snark Required?
For January this year most of the guys in IT grew full beards. Much to the dismay of our wifes and girl friends, it was a funny way to bond with our coworkers over the month.
We also have a number of other cross-IT social activities, some of us play WoW together, others are on bowling, soccer, or volley ball leagues together, and we even have a few RPGers. Not everyone bonds with everyone, but we've got enough cross chatter that the teams are meshing really well. It is by far one of the best social atmospheres I've worked in thus far in my career.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
We used to have 'breakdown' on Fridays. That's where we send someone around asking what you want, then send them out to get a bunch of beer. Invite one senior director every-other week for coverage and to see them 'in real life'.
I learned more about how the office -really- works, got a lot of things actually done, and met the key players much faster than those who opted-out of 'breakdown'.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
The ONLY time I would do the "team building thing" would be if it involved free and copious amounts of booze and/or food. Otherwise - fuck it. I got better things to do that to hang out with a bunch of geeks like me.
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
If you want people to come together and socialize, the only time they can do it is during lunch. Before or after work, people want to tend to their lives. During working hours you want them to work. Therefore, the solution is to provide lunch. Everyone loves free food (make sure it's good and healthy) so that's going to put your people into a better mood right off the bat. Eating together is the most time honored and proven solution to building community. It's baked into our DNA. People won't even realize you're doing it for selfish reasons, unlike anything else you could do. There is also a very good chance that people will actually get work done (the kind that can be done over lunch.) When hiring, you'll enjoy more accepted offers from your top candidates.
The people that run companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google, and many, many others are not stupid and not frivolous. They make a calculated decision to provide high quality food for their employees. It pays off.
You may have tapped into a theme that is a commonly growing one - our workplaces are certainly changing. I find these days that they people in them are more transient, more multi-cultural, more multi-generational and more and more the work and conversations are mediated through the power of internet technologies. I'm a big fan of the use of storytelling to build the depth of community it sounds you are hoping to develop in your organization. Interestingly enough storytelling can be just as effective online in building teams and deepening group relationships. I've recently done a PhD on the topic looking at a range of online software tools: http://hdl.handle.net/10292/778 You may find the 5.0 findings chapter may be useful as well as some of the process guidelines in chapter 6. Storytelling is a really useful for people to establish their identity, to share values and beliefs and to create a collective sense of one another. It creates real possibility for groups of people - particularly for those who are struggling to form cohesively face-to-face online. I'd recommend that you have a go at bringing a group of people together - online or face-to-face - inviting them to get to know their company colleagues and that you're aiming at building more community in the company. If you get a lot of people responding then I'd suggest you form them into sub-groups of 6-8. Get them to assign a time keeper in each group and give them 30-40 minutes to respond to a 'focus question' or statement. something like "Sharing a learning from a previous career and how it now helps you in your current role in the company; sharing a key learning from your worst job or worst failure; share a dream for the future; conquering a challenge; share what are the burning questions or issues for you at this company... (I'm sure you can come up with something workable). If you're going to do it face-to-face - perhaps see if corporate can sponsor some beer and pizza! If online - tool selection could be an important success factor - choose something simple to start with and then you can maybe leave tool selection up to the sub-groups if they've formed. One of my roles is to train people in facilitating online groups. I lead online programmes that bring together people from around the world together to learn about the art of group facilitation online and to engage in a range of online software tools: http://www.zenergyglobal.com/of/ I get people blogging, skyping, video conferencing and facilitating each other in Second Life. It's amazing how creative groups of people can get when they are given some choices and a bonded and aligned organization is so much more effective, resilient and responsive to change. Best wishes for your community development calling. Stephen
Yammer is awesome at our company. Very much like twitter, but private to your organization. Everyone, young and old, sales development, support, etc.. uses it. I think it's exactly what you're looking for.
"I've done it dozens of times" ... "F500 businesses" "PhD" ... People don't even understand" ... "I'm a shrink" ...
We get it. You think a lot of yourself. You could have just said that and been done with it. Nothing else you said brought anything of merit to the discussion.
Its a business. You come to work, not get a hand-job.
Our work has internal messageboards, listservs, and a social networking site (http://elgg.org). We also have intramural sports leagues for softball, tennis, and basketball (I would really recommend softball as a cross-generational, laid back, fun activity). We have our own field, so we can drink beer on it. It's pretty awesome.
Richard Branson has some good ideas with Virgin when his divisions grow.
Once a team gets too big (I can't remember the number, 50?) he cuts the team in half and then has each team run independently with their own budgets, etc. This lets people know and meet a smaller number of people instead of having to get to know hundreds or thousands.
It also helps the people create a community they can interact with. Sure you won't have one massive community but who really wants a love-in with hundreds when you've got work to do? Instead of thinking about 1 monolithic community try and think of multiple, smaller communities that people can become involved in and feel like they actually contribute to something greater.
If I was witty I'd put something funny here but, as it stands, I am not and have just wasted seconds of your life
Strip Club! Anyone too hung up on "Political Correctness" won't go. Weeds out the problem people pretty fast. Bonus points if you catch a secretary moonlighting!
"When I am king, you will be first against the wall..."
I worked for a software contractor in college. Real young, small company, contracted for a large corp. We had bi-weekly phone conference meetings every Tuesday/Thursday mornings for 15 min a piece. These were only for QA and development groups (kept small) and meant as free for all events were everybody could voice their issues etc. Of course there were the "project wide meetings" which were more or less a dialogue between the various managers which were obviously useful for them (and nobody else) but didn't really build any spirit. To somebody working on the bottom of the food chain, the 15 minute stand up say your thing meetings did foster that sort of thing. Caveat: these probably require halfway reasonable and smart folks.
Failure formatting five FAQs of financial facts.
One of the main problems is actually getting people to meet each other, even to know of the others existence.
This will be a bit controversial in an office but think about introducing a half hour mmpog.
Split people up into teams and then vary the teams over time (say every two months) so that different people get to work together with others they don't know.
Getting this pas your CEO may be tough.
But this can tick all the right boxes for what you are trying to do.
I agree with Older Guy....I really don't want to be *forced* to socialize with many of my co-workers. I am a techie, and my free time is spent with my Family, they are the reason I work (well, that and boredom), and my friends. If I do socialize with any of my co-workers, it will be MY choice of who and when. Activities like bowling, golf, etc are good, but to just generally *have* to sit around an chat....no thanks. And don't even get me started on *team-building* crap......
Get the company to frequently sponsor pizza parties or some other type of food event. People tend to connect while eating. Also start hobby-based groups. Start a running/cycling group, a golfing group, a knitting group, etc. The hobby groups are how people tend to connect outside of their departments.
Honestly? Put an XBox in the lunch room, and get Rock Band for it. Works great for us. All sorts of people who wouldn't otherwise get to know each other together end up playing together.
One thing I wanna point out is your managers. If you have some departments that are starting to not fit in your culture, look closely at the manager in place. People like to hire other people like themselves. So, if you hire an asshole, he's going to hire more assholes to work for him. If you hire a boring, introverted bean counter, he's going to hire more just like himself. If you look at your managers and think, "Well, he gets his job done and I guess he's good enough." then you probably don't have a good manager. You should be thinking, "Wow. This gal is brilliant and really kicks ass." Don't settle for mediocrity. Also, don't ever let one of your managers convince you they can't be replaced. If they're able to convince you of that, then you're building your organizational structure wrong.
I like the other ideas regarding food and drink - that's very important and it would have been the first thing I mentioned if it hadn't been covered well above..
Oh, and hire a young front desk girl that wears low cut tops, mini skirts, and thigh highs. It makes the geeks happy.
----- obSig
In my experience, most office politics arise when people don't know, like, or respect each other enough to try and work out compromises on their own. A workplace with your "professional" attitude, where people are expected to treat each other like black-box automata (you don't know or care what's going on inside, so long as they're getting their reports in on time and with the proper TPS cover sheets attached) is not a recipe for happiness or productivity.
When people care about each other and the company, it leads to high trust and low transaction costs. If two people from different parts of the company have a good idea, they'll start working on it, and people can trust them to manage it. In a low-trust, "professional" environment, it's unlikely that the two would have had the initial idea in the first place, much less begun working on it without first codifying a system for determining who gets credit and whose department gets charged for the staff resources.
Life is too short to spend a third of it in an environment that doesn't allow you to express your humanity in a meaningful way.
A citation for it not being totally gay or that a circle jerk can be a good bonding experience?
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The biggest hurdle I've always run into while trying to build "community" at work.... is getting everyone to genuinely be interested in the same goal (of "building community"). You've got people of different ages, different technical education levels, different cultural backgrounds,etc,etc.... trying to get them all to agree and actively participate in a shared-goal of community building.. will be difficult. I think this is probably why you see the most popular answers/solutions in this thread revolve around: 1.) alcohol.. and 2.) Food.. .and sometimes 3.) breakrooms (casual environments) and video games. Because those simple solutions have less possibility of "going wrong" (although they definitely still can).
Without knowing your company personally.. I think its going to be hard for us to give good practical effective advice. Depending on the size of your company, you may just want to sit back (as others in this thread have suggested) and let the social groups form themselves (and humans are naturally bent to do) without trying to force it to much. I'd have to agree with the popular opinion that the best you can hope for is seeding the ground and simply trying to encourage potential (instead of forcing community on people).
"In particular, I have heard some... not very tactful... comments from immigrants about American blacks, the kinds of things that even racist rural white Mississippians would, in 2010, know you can't say in public. (This isn't specific to Asian immigrants--- I've also heard white European immigrants, especially from Russia or eastern Europe, say such things.)"
Why yes we do have long dicks and are great in bed.
It's nice that you want to improve the chumminess and information flow at the workplace, but how do senior management feel about this? Because change won't occur without them buying in - and I mean *really* buying in.
IRC is great for allowing a free flow of ephemeral information, but unless the CEO is using it, habitually as a way of requesting ideas or whatever, rather than sending mail to everyone@ - of course it will not get used. Feel free to substitute any technology or approach for IRC in that sentence.
The original poster mentions two "problems", the first had to do with effective communications in a large organization, and the second had to do creating an environment where people could still get that small company feel as the organization grew. As several people have pointed out, the older the workforce gets, and the larger the company gets, the less interest there will be on the part of employees (especially older employees) to spend their personal time with co-workers. So let's focus less on the fun, and more on improving communications and finding ways to allow for the free flow of information and ideas within a growing organization using technology (since that seems to be what the original poster is getting at).
If you're looking for a way for people to informally discuss projects, tech problems, policy, or simply a way to build and store "common knowledge", then you should avoid "realtime communication tools" (ex: IM, IRC, phone, etc.), and focus on asynchronous or collaborative tools. You can start with something simple like a web based forum or a wiki, and then move to more complicated systems as more people get involved. But in order for these kinds of asynchronous communication systems to really be useful to an organization you (eventually) need top-down support and you need some fairly clear policy regarding the things that won't be discussed online before you start. Some of this policy will deal with simple operational issues (ex: requests for IT help should be submitted using the company approved helpdesk system not the company internal forums), some policies will deal with HR issues (ex: management shouldn't discuss personnel problems online in the "managers forum"), and some of those policies will be related to legal issues (ex: corporate document retention policies will also apply to the online "knowledge and collaboration systems"). In the end, the tools you use will depend a lot on the resources available, and the kind of collaboration you're looking to encourage (which is why it's often useful to get support from senior management before you put something in production). But whatever way you decide to go, it's best to approach this using the same methodology you'd use to develop and deploy any new service in your company (ie: figure out the goals, what's in-scope and out, etc. etc.).
Community is hard.
1. Have a coffee lounge, not just a place to get coffee. You want a place where people can stop for 20 minutes and chill.
2. Make the hallways 4 feet wide. This means that if two people talk in the hall, anyone coming down the hall has to join the conversation, or shove them out of the way.
3. One place I worked brought in Pizza for lunch one day a week.
4. Mix up the offices. Don't let all the developers live in one corner, and all the HR people live in another. Move everyone once a year.
5. Provide day care on site. This will help get family people talking to eachother.
6. Move the company location to a neighborhood, then engage in taking over the neighborhood. Your goal: Everyone who wishes can live withing walking distance to work.
7.. Sponsor a company X team where X is one or more of {curling, bowling, softball}
8. Make sure your social networking software is set up so people can coordinate non-company activities. E.g. can I use the social network to find a canoe partner.
9. Friday after work is pub night. Company buys the first round. Pick a pub that is quiet enough for conversation.
10. A bulletin board with everyone's photo and name on it. This allows you to actually learn everyone's name if you wish. (You have a crib sheet.)
11. Encourage personal web pages for people to talk about their own interests.
12. Sponsor a bunch of activities each summer, with the company picking up part of the tab. These can either be family oriented, or team oriented. E.g. I'll take you down the McFarlane River in voyageur canoes. Three weeks. Nothing like carrying a 22 foot canoe to build team spirit. Or take all the assistant VP's rock climbing.
Third Career: Tree Farmer Second Career: Computer Geek First Career: Teacher, Outdoor Instructor, Photographer.
Robert Sutton, "The No Asshole Rule".
I just picked it up today -- possibly someone in this discussion mentioned it, but anyway, it's awesome. Read it and make you managers read it.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
We find that Yammer meets all our "light" collaboration needs. You can use it all you want for free. They charge to get access to the 'enterprise" features.
Nowhere, EVER, does "America" refer to an entire continent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Continents#Number_of_continents
nuff said, little interest