Erica Keswin: It’s Harder to Bring Your Human to Work During Uncertain Times

Expert Interview for Sharehold’s Redesigning Belonging Research

Published in

Sharehold

4 min readOct 29, 2020

This post is part of an ongoing series in which Sharehold is publicly sharing our research that answered the question: “How does uncertainty impact one’s sense of belonging at work?” Access the insights here.

Meet Erica Keswin

Erica Keswin is a workplace strategist, the author of WSJ bestseller, Bring Your Human to Work, and the host of the podcast Left to Our Own Devices. Her next book, Rituals Roadmap: The Human Way to Transform Everyday Routines into Workplace Magic, is now available for pre-order.

As part of Sharehold’s research on redesigning belonging at work for uncertainty, we interviewed Erica as a leader at the forefront of the future of work. Her interview highlighted a few themes:

How culture is intertwined with belonging — or lack thereof
The role leaders play in cultivating a sense of belonging for their team
How rituals support belonging (as well as business outcomes)

Read on for a few selections from our interview with Erica:

How do you define belonging at work?

“When I talk to people about belonging at work, they say it is when they can bring their human or their whole self. It’s really bringing your most appropriate self to work — you feel comfortable being you, speaking up, and asking questions.

It’s getting a sense of culture and trying to be who you are within that culture. We also have to realize that a culture might not be right for you.”

How does a leader foster a human-centered workplace, and what does this have to do with belonging?

“As humans, belonging is one of our deepest needs, whether it’s in a sports team, school, or family. When a leader can create that feeling of belonging, everyone shows up better.”

“Is this leader honoring relationships with their colleagues, boss, direct reports, their customers, and even themselves? It also comes down to values. 99% of people will say that their company has values, but if you dig deeper, they simply put a plaque on a desk. The connection to belonging is that if you join a company because you are connected with what they stand for — which is more important today than ever before for career and purchasing decisions — you’re going to see much better employee engagement, employee satisfaction, and belonging.”

How might this turbulent time impact our sense of belonging at work?

“Maintaining these connections to things you did before [COVID-19] is a huge, huge issue. We need to think about ways to create new rituals or new opportunities to connect.”

“It becomes much more challenging to bring your human to work during uncertain times. This is why leaders need to be much more intentional about how they connect with their employees and how they curate connections within the team. There will be dramatic implications if they don’t.”

What can we do to increase belonging during this time?

“If you want the people that work for you to open up and share what’s really going on, you have to lead by example. Especially in the midst of what is going on right now, leaders have to be open and willing to share.”

“Leaders’ willingness to be open and vulnerable will have a pretty big impact on how people are feeling and their willingness to perform. If you feel safe, and you’re still part of this team, and you’re not going to get fired, you’re much more likely to be able to perform.”

“Six months from now, we may not all be in each other’s living rooms, but hopefully, we will remember what we learned and what we saw, which will then create better opportunities for connection because we’ve gotten to know each other.”

What role do rituals play in fostering a sense of belonging?

“Rituals are a tool of a human workplace.”

“If your business goals are retention, employee satisfaction, and engagement (and we know how expensive turnover is) as outputs, what do you need as an input? If you want to increase the business metrics, then you need to think about how you get there and focus on getting your people to feel like they can bring with them their whole selves and that they’re connected.

Rituals give people a sense of psychological safety, a sense of belonging, a sense of connection, which then leads to better outputs. It’s something that you need to figure out a way to focus on inside your organization to maximize your business results.”