Community working
the future is about building communities.
The benefits and power
The benefits and the power of collaboration, across departments! We call that community working! We believe that working in a community is the best way to get inspired and inspire each other with ‘best’ practices… and ‘bad’ practices’ 😉
Building a community
The best (personal) growth and development opportunities arise in a community in which you learn from each other. To build a community within a professional environment, it is important that all participants can collaborate effectively and effectively and feel safe in their role. Organizations that successfully build a learning (we like to call it growth) community among employees often experience more trust, respect, empathy and cooperation. With these essential principles in mind, here are a few deliveries.
- Support networking: the sense of belonging.
- Growth opportunities: bringing more value.
- Personal investments: involvement in decision-making, equality, sense of responsibility.
- Better collaboration: increased trust
- Efficient communication: more connection = better communication.
- Increased productivity: individual contribution in relation to the goals of the organization, sense of purpose.
- Professional satisfaction: increased loyalty and involvement (employee retention).
podcast
Community Building
with Sandra van Heulekom
Episode S2E09 | 26 min 13 sec | Dutch
Traveling together, without knowing the final destination. We are talking to Kim van Stippent (Community builder-FTF) and Sandra van Heukelom (Chairman of the Board- Pels Rijcken) about the wish that existed within Pels Rijcken three years ago and about the strong community of assistants that is fully active within Pels Rijcken today.
What we will do
Session 1
During the first session we will work interactively (in hubs) on common themes. We start to look in amazement (another word for ‘what do people grumble a lot about’) at our environment, our work process and our behaviour. This results in meaningful themes with which we can enrich your organization (everything with -er, better, smarter, faster…). We will experiment with these themes on a project basis (via an agile structure).
Session 2
During the second session we will reflect together on the experiments and we will make an in-depth (with best and bad practices) on how you can create even more depth in the community!
- Optimize connections (it’s about real connections)
- Define organizational values as collective (common goal)
- Creating an online environment (platform)
- Stimulate connections (empower)
- Organize Full-Team Events (inspire)
- Invest ownership at all levels (profile)
- Promote a healthy work-life balance (well-being)
Our best practice: GROW Program Assistants (GPA) Rabobank
A good example is Rabobank’s GROW Program Assistants (GPA). Read more about this best practice below.
A nice example
The big dream of Janine Vos (HR Director Rabobank) was ‘One community of Assistants‘. Digitization and centralization have an impact on the processes and require something from employees’ ability to change. The GPA was created in order to create awareness among assistants and the need for them to get moving. We started working with the assistants themselves and started innovating together in the profession. Incidentally, this is a strong conviction of the ftf: Let people think along. The goal: to be part of the movement and to activate (self)reflective capacity.
This is how the GPA growth program came about and we actively started working on talent development, process-improving thinking/working and personal leadership (from fixed to growth mindset). Rabobank’s 4 behaviors were the leitmotif in the programme: “A rock-solid community of assistants in their strengths, strongly working together, with an excellent customer focus and contributing to a meaningful cooperative that has the dream of becoming a community bank.“
