Energy Hacks for Building a Resilient Workplace Culture: Part Four
2 hacks for harnessing ‘relating’ energy
KeepWell Mark accredited organisations build resilient workplace cultures. They ensure employees are strong on ‘physical’, ‘thinking’, ‘doing’, ‘relating’ and ‘feeling’ energy. Previous posts include hacks for harnessing physical, thinking and doing energy. This post looks at ‘relating’ energy.
What is ‘relating’ energy?
Ever felt a bit down, bored or maybe just a little aimless, then plugged into your social network and got a renewed sense of focus or even purpose? If so, it’s because you’ve been the beneficiary of ‘relating energy’. Relating energy can boost productivity in the workplace too. Mixing socially helps colleagues to solidify their relationships. It builds resilience.
Here are two hacks for building relating energy in the workplace.
Hack 1: To build a resilient workplace culture, you can help your employees build social support networks
Off-site
Investing in social gatherings pays. In my previous blog on ‘doing’ energy, I share how celebrating successes and marking milestones at the elbowroom escape helps organisations such as Google, Ernest & Young, Diageo, Siemens, Accenture, Public House Advertising Company, RCI Mobility (France) and Ikea. By creating bespoke corporate escapes with us, they bolstered relating energy, which translated into ‘doing’ energy upon their return to the workplace.
Customer testimonial
“It was definitely a great experience for our entire team. Will surely recommend it to other colleagues/friends. Can’t wait for another trip soon.” Ankit Mishra, Senior Account Manager, Google
On-site
Away days are great. Encouraging relating energy within the workplace is just as important. Create soft spaces for colleagues to chill out and eat together. Encourage lunch time and after work activities (did I mention that we run lunchtime and after work yoga sessions at many businesses’ workplaces in and around Dublin and Wicklow?).
In your community
Think about other ways how you can bring people together to achieve something positive for your local community or a chosen cause too. For example, I invited my teams at the elbowroom and the elbowroom escape to contribute to an initiative to help our local direct provision community last Christmas.
We hosted 24 parents and children, giving them a safe place they could call home for three days in our luxury mountain lodge. Our guests had free access to all our facilities and we ran a full programme of arts, crafts, yoga and walking events, thanks to the generosity of our team and local volunteers.
With your community
Our local community donated over €1000, baby clothes and sanitary items. Our suppliers donated transportation and food. The positive energy we all got from this at one of the busiest times in our calendar was clear to see. Feedback from my team is that it brought them even closer together and gave them a huge sense of pride. All, without exception, would do it again.
Hack 2: To build a resilient workplace culture, you can encourage employees to tap into multiple perspectives by creating their own stakeholder support maps
Tapping into multiple perspectives is core to resilience building. More and more corporates booking space at the elbowroom escape are tapping into our expertise. One session we run is all about how to tap into multiple perspectives. It includes the following exercise, which enables those present to design their own stakeholder maps.
The elbowroom escape stakeholder mapping exercise
You will need an A4 (or larger) piece of paper, two different coloured (or shaped) packs of Post-it notes and a pen. Draw a circle in the middle of the paper. Write your name in it. Think about colleagues who could be part of your personal support network in relation to the following encourager roles. If you completed the energy fillers and drillers exercise in part two of this series, you may wish to use those people you named as your energy fillers here.
Encourager roles
- Mentor: provides long term support and guidance by sharing their wisdom and experience
- Coach: provides shorter term/ focussed support to help you develop a specific skill/ overcome a particular challenge
- Collaborator: works well with you, is confident in your skills and abilities, energises you to grow
- Observer: observes your behaviour impartially and gives you honest, constructive feedback
- Sponsor: opens up new opportunities for you to move into new areas of work; promotes your profile within the organisation/ sector.
- Write the names of people suited to each role on Post-it notes from one of the packs. Select one name per role and arrange them around your name on the piece of paper. Place those you think will be the most supportive nearest to you. Place those you think will be the least supportive further away. Place those who are higher up your organisational structure above you, those lower down beneath you and those at the same level to the sides.
- Now, think outside of your workplace. Write the names of other encouragers on sheets from the other set of Post-it notes. Place them accordingly.
- Once you are happy with where you have placed each encourager, connect them to the circle with your name in the centre of the page, according to how much support you are currently getting from them. Use double lines to indicate you are getting a lot of value from your relationship. Draw single lines if you are getting some value from your relationship. Draw dotted lines if you are getting little or no value from your relationship.
- Next, remove the Post-it notes and write in the names, using boxes for the first set of post it notes and circles for the second (so you can easily identify which are work relationships and which are not).
- Finally, create a SMART plan to put your personal stakeholder map to good use.
NB: Further steps to enable participants to achieve step eight are shared at our resilience workshops.
That’s all for now folks! Next week, I’ll share my hacks for harvesting ‘feeling’ (or emotional) energy. Meanwhile:
- Find out more about our tried and tested packages you can tailor to create your own team building activities and team-building experiences here
- Watch a short video about our unique team building venue here.
- Get in touch here.
