Faced with the erosion of social ties, the company becomes an essential space for meeting and sharing. A place where the collective of tomorrow is built on a daily basis.
Aurélie Albenesius, Director of HR Development – Kiloutou France
A manager often refers to his HR manager when one of his teammates is going through a difficult period, and asks him how best to support him. This situation, far from being isolated, says something essential about our time: faced with the distress of others, even the best-intentioned often find themselves helpless, without reference points, without tools. Human relations management can be learned — and this is precisely what companies have a responsibility to teach.
A bond that frays everywhere
The cafes are closing. Attendance at small businesses is declining. Associations struggle to recruit volunteers. Mental health is, for the second year in a row, a Great National Cause. Studies are multiplying to tell us that loneliness now affects all age groups — and young people first. La Fabrique Spinoza, in a recent study on the society of connections, underlines that social connection constitutes the number one expectation for the overwhelming majority of employees.
In this context, a question arises, which we do not always dare to formulate clearly: what if the company was becoming one of the last places where people really talk to each other?
The company, a unique brewing place
What’s remarkable about the company — and what we often forget — is that it brings together people who might never have chosen to rub shoulders with each other. Different generations, different origins, different backgrounds.
This intergenerational mixing, in particular, constitutes a wealth that is often under-exploited: it allows the transmission of know-how, but also of benchmarks, ways of working, and sometimes simply ways of being together. It is perhaps one of the only spaces that still resists the logic of bubbles and ambient communitarianism. You don’t choose your colleagues like you choose your subscriptions or your news feeds.
And this is precisely where a new – and profound – responsibility for employers lies.
What field experience teaches
In environments where physical proximity is strong – operational professions, field teams, commercial functions – one might think that the link is self-evident. In reality, this is not the case. Presence is not enough. The link cannot be decreed: it is built, intentionally.
Some organizations have thus put in place simple but structuring rituals. For example, establish a regular individual meeting between manager and employee, opened with two questions — “How are you?” and “How is your workload?”. This may seem trivial. It’s not. These moments, when they are sincere, quickly become expected and structuring for the teams. They also make it possible to more calmly address subjects that have become central, such as the balance between professional and personal life, which can no longer be left outside of managerial dialogue as it has been for too long.
In the same way, integration can no longer be limited to learning a position. It becomes a key moment for creating lasting links: allowing a newcomer to meet different people, to understand the human dynamics of the company, to build a network on which they can rely over time.
Conviviality, an underestimated lever
Behind these practices lies an often undervalued reality: conviviality is a structuring factor of commitment.
Not a façade of conviviality, but a lived conviviality, embodied on a daily basis. The one that involves simple gestures: a shared coffee, a barbecue between teammates, attention paid to others. Rituals which may seem anecdotal, but which in reality constitute the foundations of a collective culture.
This is also often what employees – and even candidates – perceive. The image of a company is not based solely on what it says or produces, but on the relational promise it embodies.
A collective responsibility to assume
The company is not intended to replace family, friendly or associative ties. But in a world where these connections are eroding, it has a role to play.
Training managers in caring relationships – this simple idea that saying hello, thanking, stopping for a minute to check on the state of a colleague, it’s not wasted time, it’s management – it’s a concrete way of responding to the crisis of connection.
Creating spaces where people who would not naturally have much in common get to know each other, work together, sometimes even meet again after leaving: this is an ambition that more companies could adopt.
The company is not just the place where we produce. It is also – perhaps more and more – the place where we share.
