Ashish Kothari shares three ways to boost workplace engagement: have casual personal check-ins, find shared interests like hobbies or sports, and spend meaningful time together on projects or outside work. Gallup research shows friendships at work drive retention and productivity.
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This week's tip on flourishing at work. I invite you to turn to the power of friendships. Now, we know from research done by Gallup that when we have a friend at work, we are seven times more engaged. We are less likely to leave our job. We are likely to be more productive. And so if you really want to harness this power of flourishing, cultivate more friendships and invite your teams to build friendships at work. Three simple ways to do it. Number one, finding space for more casual conversations versus constantly busy work oriented conversations. Check in on how things are going personally in people's lives. Number two, find. Find things that you share in common. Things like hobbies, things like cuisines, food you might enjoy, sports, teams, travels. There's a lot of things that actually unite us versus divide us. And that common ground can be a powerful place to sow the seeds of friendship. And three, find opportunities to do things together. Spend meaningful time together. Now, of course, this can be in the context of work projects, but if that's not possible, find ways outside of work. Maybe you go for a run together, maybe you volunteer together, but finding real meaningful opportunities to work can be a powerful way to find new friendships at work.
