The Importance of Being Earnest (in socialising with colleagues)

The value of connection and communication within the workplace cannot be overstated, and an emphasis has been placed on this over the past few years, especially during the times of lockdowns and isolation. However, as some modern workplaces shift towards a hybrid approach, of partial home-working and partial office working, we need to appraise and alter how we communicate with our colleagues. Whilst, in an entirely in-office environment having regular and meaningful contact with coworkers can be the simple case of physically sharing a space, when working from home this is not possible. Additionally, with a hybrid working framework, you may uncover the issue of finding it difficult to overlap well with the people you work with - perhaps missing some colleagues by just a day or two consistently, dependent upon rotas. Maintaining healthy and fun social links with colleagues in this new framework can be relatively simple, with just a little bit of consideration.

There are a whole host of reasons why regular communication is healthy and helpful within a professional context, but two important aspects to consider involve the social and working benefits. The concept of earnest communication involves simply putting in the effort to develop your working relationships with colleagues and to regularly speak. This can often look like taking 5 minutes to have social calls with colleagues, or to invest a little more time at the start of meetings to see how people are, or even committing to work events after the working day ends. The more you spend doing these, likely the stronger your relationship with your colleagues will be, which often translates into a greater sense of cooperation and more willingness to approach these colleagues for discussion and problem solving in your work. Additionally, the social aspect of having people you enjoy working with provides another reason to enjoy your work and often this viewpoint of working relates to your approach to work in general. Finally, it also provides positive social engagement, which is not always abundant for many people who are working solo in home offices - which, again, can provide a real boost to your mood during the day.

We at Butterfly have been working to contribute to strong colleague communication and relationships, as we believe that we work best when we want to work together. What this looks like, in a practical sense, boils down to how we invest our time. Every day we have scrums, which are an important touchstones for us to define the work for the day and to troubleshoot any issues we might have in achieving exactly what we want. However, just before that scrum we have a social call where we get to check in with how everybody is doing and to generally chat about what is on our minds. This regular check-in allows for us to continually be developing professional relationships. Also, we have some social events which can span from whole company family days to local cohort socials - most recently a whole family event day in Oxford, where Butterflies and their partners and children came together to enjoy the beautiful sun and to have a relaxing day together. It is worth mentioning that these events, whilst optional, can provide a real benefit to how we can interact with our coworkers and it is not an intangible benefit that these events are often extremely fun. Ultimately, it has always been my view, and Butterfly frequently agrees with this, that whilst the work we provide is often a serious and important affair, that does not mean that there is not space for some fun along the way.