Musings on Workplace Connectedness.

When you think of work, you probably think of payday, commutes, office cubicles, maybe sales, operations, HR, marketing. Probably reports and meetings. You probably don’t think of connectedness. Tell me if I’m wrong. We walk through life as human beings, building connections over a lifetime with family members, with neighbors on our streets, with friends from school, playmates from sports, someone from church or synagogue.

But we don’t naturally assume work will be a source of friendship, of connectedness. Yet by our adulthood, most of our waking hours are spent with coworkers. If you agree with Brene Brown, Matthew Lieberman and many of the researchers of our age, you believe that humans are built at a neurologic level to connect with other humans. So WHY on EARTH would we discount such an obvious area of connectedness from our lives? Workplace connectedness matters, folks!

I realize some people truly want to keep their personal and work lives separate. I can accept that. And yet. Are people truly capable of shutting themselves off completely from this basic human wiring for 40-60 hours a week? Is this a healthy stance? Can a car be a bicycle 40-60 hours of the week?

Did you know up to 80% of the US workforce is dissatisfied with their work depending on which research you read? I can’t help but wonder if we’ve stumbled upon some correlation here. Are people failing to experience connectedness at work? We want to hear your thoughts and feedback.

We’ve been talking a lot about why we do what we do here at PlayWorks Group over the past few weeks and this is where I keep landing: connectedness in the work place. We try and create opportunities for humans to connect at the primal level of play. Help us do a little research around this and share your stories.

We look forward to connecting with you!