It is not uncommon for employees in today’s business world to not know the name of other employees working in the cubicle or office right next to them. Many people are just so focused on their daily routines, and they barely have time to talk to each other about what they did last weekend. Also employees often look at each other as “competitors” for promotion rather than teammates a lot of times. Although being in the competitive environment in the workplace can promote productivity and liveliness which can result in high performance, it is important for people to remember that they need to be able to rely on each other in the time of crisis.
Camaraderie is defined as “mutual trust and friendship among people who spend a lot of time together” by Oxford Languages. Most people probably associate the term camaraderie with members of the armed forces, but I personally do not believe it is necessary to serve in the military to experience what camaraderie is. People who spent more than a decade in the same company going through ups and downs together, are more than qualified to say they shared camaraderie with each other. Even some of those college students who has been going through college classes between freshmen to senior year by working numerous group projects together can certainly say they shared camaraderie with each other.
Camaraderie is the glue that holds the organization together as a cohesive unit. It is impossible for companies in the business world to survive any crisis when their employees are in the “I am only going to do what is within my job description” mindset. Everyone should be able to reach out to each other for help when they have difficulties affecting their performance, and everyone should be willing to offer assistance regardless of the fact that it is within their job description or not. This is the difference between employees coming to work everyday with the “this is just a place I come to pay my bills” attitude and “these people are my second family” attitude.
Then how can you encourage more of camaraderie in your workplace? Managers of the company need to do more than just “standard performance rating”. They need to take time to engage in “nonbusiness conversation” when the time is right. You might think, “why would I talk about my personal life with my managers?”, but employees are just going to be “part of numbers” as long as their managers do not know their employees inside and out. How would a manager find out if the employee gets motivated intrinsically or extrinsically if they do not talk to each other? How can you develop trust with your manager if you do not even know what city he or she was born in or what kind of coffee he or she likes to drink?
In conclusion, take time to talk to your fellow employees today. Initiate the conversation with the employee that you have been seeing in the same office for a while, but you never had a chance to talk to because “he or she seems to be very private person”. Develop camaraderie within your teammates. If you are in the managerial role, I urge you to plan something that you and your employees can do together outside of work once a week or even once a month even if that activity is not in person considering the global pandemic we got going right now. You will be surprised what camaraderie can do to increase the level of productivity in your workplace.