The Office, the quintessential workplace comedy T.V. series, was once the most relatable depiction of working life.

Why was The Office so relatable? Indeed, it was the humorous expression of the mundane, everyday-life moments. But, I think the most relatable aspect in many ways was the sense of community and camaraderie between the characters. We could see ourselves and our colleagues in Dwight, in Meredith, in Jim. It reminded us of our workplace communities– the people we sit near and work with everyday.

But over the last decade as organizations have established more distributed workforces, it's changed the types of workplace communities we experience. No longer is our work just with the people we sit near, which in some ways makes The Office a lot less relatable. Many of us are working with people in other offices and other countries. And then, there are cross-functional centers of excellence or communities of practice. The number of workplace communities that are accessible and available to us has significantly increased.

And it doesn't stop there. The surface area for workplace communities increased exponentially over the last year during the global pandemic. When we work from home, we can choose how we spend our "water cooler" time. Employees are creating communities for whatever they want and working with whomever they want. This includes working "with" people from other companies like in the Clubhouse virtual co-working space (where people show up to a room and work in silence with each other… seriously).

In a recent post about The Importance of Change Communities, I shared a typology of workplace communities with examples of community types, from change champions to learning cohorts to meetups to ERGs to everything in between. But there is also an emergent trend of less formal communities that any employee can start without permission.

The emergence of "influencer tools" inside the workplace has helped fuel this growth. Anyone can create a Yammer group or a Teams space or a Stream channel, which means that anyone can become a "workplace influencer" and build a community.

For example, Carolina Kunnen and David Borja created one such community at Alcon. When social distancing protocols prevented chance meetings (that often led to more innovative ideas), they worked together to develop a new way to connect the people of Alcon. They started producing vlogs to increase company-wide awareness of new capabilities in vision care. If they couldn't rely on serendipitous run-ins for knowledge-sharing and off-the-cuff collaborating, they were determined to create their network for it. 

Employees at Alcon are making connections as part of the discussions. Fittingly so, Carolina & David's work was recently featured on their company website.

Shelina Ramnarine created one such workplace community at Johnson & Johnson – a group of Black employees striving to make the company a better workplace. In 2019, she had an idea to create an event that featured Black voices from inside the company to help them share their ideas. It was initially challenging to find support, but she was able to pull it off. 

In 2020, when the world's attention turned to the Black Lives Matter movement, the videos from Shelina's 2019 event exploded in popularity. Employees were seeking out ways to learn about the experiences of their Black colleagues and how they could be better allies. This naturally led to Shelina's community gaining influence and visibility. She considers it a contributing factor to a recent promotion.

The fascinating thing about some of these communities is that they are role-agnostic. It's not like running a center of excellence where that may be part of your "job" to do it, and you would transition it when you get a new position. These are communities that employees can continue to build and influence as they switch roles and advance inside of their organizations.

Leading these communities carries with it tremendous influence and ability to affect change in their organizations. At Cultivate, we believe the future of business is dependent on building, managing, and supporting workplace communities and the people who lead them.

The tools at our disposal everyday inside our workplaces are making it much easier for us to build communities of colleagues and empower each other to make our organizations better. As our workplaces continue to evolve, as companies try to figure out “return to the office” campaigns, and as cities compete to attract remote talent, it’s clear that communities will play a massive role in the future of work. And every employee has the opportunity in front of them to pick themselves to build a community.

What community are you building?

Share your ideas. Solve problems. Make a difference.

We’re building a community where your voice is heard, solutions are shared, and changemakers around the world can mobilize for change. If you are passionate about change, culture, and innovation, this is the place for you.