Workshop - Community spirit in the workplace

Structure of the workshop:

1. Introduction and orientation (15 min)

• Welcome participants and explain the objectives of the workshop.
• Provide a short introduction on the impact of community on individual well-being and the functioning of the whole work community (ready-made text base).
• Remind participants: the workshop does not aim to solve everything at once. The most important thing is to listen to others and understand what supports community spirit and what small changes could be made.

2. Open exploration of ideas in groups (30 min)

• Divide participants into groups of 4-6 people, with participants from different teams or work groups as randomly as possible. For example, you could use the instruction "Split into three groups" and then number participants: one-two-three, one-two-three, ...
• Give each group some paper, post-it notes and pens.
• Ask participants to discuss the following questions and write down their answers:
  "At what moments do you feel connected at work?"
  "Do you feel lonely or isolated at work in some situations? In which situations?"
  "Where does the sense of community already work? What supports it?"
  "How do structures (e.g. meeting practices, communication, division of labour, physical space, hybrid work) influence your experiences?"

3. The Wall of Ideas (30 min)

Continue working in the same groups.

Objective: to highlight barriers and enablers to community.

• Have a flipchart or use a wall to put up sticky notes.
• Ask participants to discuss the following questions:
  "What structures and practices prevent community?"
  "What factors and practices enable community?"
  "What ideas and aspirations do you have for strengthening the community?"
• After the discussion, ask participants to write down things on paper/post-it notes individually or in groups and post them on the wall:

🔴 Structures and practices that hinder community.

🟢 Enablers or practices that enable community.

🔵 Ideas and aspirations for strengthening community.

Tip: You can use different coloured post-it notes or draw a symbol (🔴🟢🔵).

• Allow 10-15 minutes to write and attach the notes.
• At the end, ask everyone to go around the ideas wall and read each other's observations and, if they wish, add new notes to the wall of ideas.

4. Putting ideas into structures (30 min)

• Ask the groups to choose 1-2 themes or ideas from their outputs that they would like to develop further.
• Ask them to work on their own ideas using the following questions (e.g. show these to the group). 
  "What problem does this solve?"
  "What could be a new or modified structure or method?"
  "How would this benefit the work community?"
  "How could this work in practice in everyday life?

Examples of structures that strengthen community:

• new weekly meetings
• shared breaks
• peer support
• mentoring program

Tip: Encourage more concrete and applied solutions– how could the idea be implemented in everyday life with even a small change?

5. Presentation of ideas and joint prioritisation (15 min)

• Ask each group to briefly present the idea they have developed (2-3 min per group is sufficient).
• Take a collective vote after all ideas have been heard:

Ask: "Which 1-3 ideas would be the most important to try out or implement?"

You can use sticker voting, electronic voting or hand voting.

Write the selected ideas visibly, for example on a flip chart, in slides, or in a shared document.

6. Follow-up (15 min)

• Together, for the selected ideas, go through the following questions (you can ask the whole group or assign responsibilities to groups):
  "How will the experiment be put into practice?"
  "Who or who will be responsible for taking the experiment forward?"
  "How will we evaluate whether this worked? (e.g. feedback, observations)"
  "When will we come back and evaluate the success of the experiment?"

Tip: Set a date now to look at the impact of the experiment together (e.g. 1-2 months from now)

7. Finally

• Thank everyone for their involvement and activity.
• Highlight that strengthening the community is an ongoing process. Together we have now taken an important step to strengthen our community.

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This content is part of the inclusive tools for a caring workplace. Find out more about our community engagement tools here:

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