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Building A Culture Of Love Within The Workplace

Lisa Caprelli is a Latina entrepreneur and writer for kids & adults. An author of 19 books, she created the edutainment brand Unicorn Jazz.

There are indeed positive associations between cultures that promote companionate love and employee outcomes, such as better teamwork and satisfaction and fewer sick days taken, according to a 2014 study. Yet, in modern management literature, I've found the term “love” is almost completely absent when taking organizational success into account. Why is that?

Defining A Workplace Culture Based On Love

I believe the simple answer is that the definition of the word "love" nowadays is mostly taken to mean that of passion and intimacy, a topic that is often off-limits in the workplace. However, there are different levels of love, and the one I am talking about is the socially caring aspect of it—the mutual concern we should all have for one another as people. In this sense, the love that I am talking about is the most fundamental emotional need in our day-to-day lives; it's a need that should be fulfilled not only at home or with close ones but also at work.

Building An Emotionally Sympathetic Culture

Building a culture of love in the workplace means emphasizing warmth over sternness for high results. Having this sort of dynamic in a company is important because it can keep people connected, and in my experience, a community that feels connected also tends to be more committed to one another, in both good times and bad.

Furthermore, employees should not only receive attentive appraisal and feedback when they are doing well but also when they are underperforming. After all, a little sensitive insight from a fellow colleague or manager could be all one needs to get back to their best self. On the other end, a workplace culture of love is also one that realizes and steps in when an over-achieving and loyal employee is ignoring their personal well-being and not taking any time for themselves in exchange for a workaholic lifestyle.

Being Mindful Of Yourself

Workplace love can be put into practice not only through the words you as a leader carefully choose to speak but also in your vocal tone, body language and facial expressions, too. While this might seem like additional work if these things don’t come naturally to you, keep in mind that the extra effort to make helpful statements in a polite way of your own accord is what maintains a strong work culture. To paraphrase anthropologist Clifford Geertz—who said, "Not only ideas, but emotions too, are cultural artifacts in man"—not only a company’s ideas, but the emotions of its workers, too, are cultural artifacts.

Taking Company Policy Into Consideration

The difference between a workplace with love and one without is that managers and colleagues don’t just show care about maintaining and improving the success of the company they work for; they also show interest and consideration for one another’s overall well-being.

As you can already tell, “love” in this case can have many meanings, such as caring, sympathy, concern, appreciation and more. So, be sure to add a touch of each of these terms into your company procedure on how internal matters should be dealt with and handled. In the end, a culture of love does well for any company, as it gives employees an environment in which they can not only be motivated but also inspired to do their best work inside the office and out. After all, isn’t our jobs as business leaders to inspire our workers to live better lives? The most efficient way to do this is by creating a workplace culture norm of caring companionship among one another.

Loving Thoughts

To sum it all up, make it known that the norm around the office is that a person’s well-being is accounted for when it comes to their performance. I believe a workplace environment based on mutual love is bound to have workers who behave more ethically in concern for their “office family” and will be more present in their alertness and positive attitude to colleagues and clients alike.


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