Why is cohesion relevant?
1. How people interact with each other in the workforce will have a major impact on the performance of the organisation.
| "Workers who spend eight or more hours together, five or more days a week under commonly imposed conditions will generally find both the opportunity and the need for interaction. Their shared experiences (of accomplishments and oppressions) create a sense of connection, mutual support and collectivity" [3] |
2. It will also have a major impact on the performance and well being of each individual and their commitment and contribution.
| "The workplace serves not only as a source of potential friends; it serves as a kind of community within which many individuals experience" [4] |
3. What happens in the workplace will also impact upon the wider community. It has been identified as a place in which people should be able to interact - and by which society can become more at ‘ease with itself’.
4. But very often the workplace often simply reflects wider social divisions based on longstanding rivalries of culture and class – and inequalities. Tackling these divisions is likely to improve both internal and external relationships and may also help to alleviate some of the divisions within the wider communities in which the workforce live and socialise. Indeed, multicultural workforces may well be able to play a much more positive role in bringing different groups together, promoting understanding and tolerance and helping to avoid community conflict and disorder.
| "The workplace provides a significant, ongoing opportunity to address the cumulative effects of the layers of separation in society. As a venue for interaction - particularly if that interaction is supported and encouraged by employers working in partnership with employees - it provides a platform for an improvement in relationships, and in productivity if staff are more content" [5] |
5. In a think piece paper ahead of the final report Shamit Saggar, Professor of Political Science at the University of Sussex, positions organisations within the wider and globalised world:
| "The rationales are twofold: a) in order to avoid general suspicions and hatreds from undermining the efficiency of market forces; and b) because of the opportunity to build mixed, fully integrated workplaces using human capital resources to their full." [6] |
3. Working Alone, The Erosion of Solidarity in Today's Workplace, Charley Richardson, New Labour Forum 17(3), pp.69-78, Fall 2008
4. Working Together; How Workplace Bonds Strengthen a Diverse Democracy, Cynthia Estlund, 2003
5. Our Shared Future: The FInal Report of the Commission for Integration and Cohesion, 2007
6. Community Cohesion and the Public Interest, Shamit Saggar, 2007, http://collections.europarchive.org/tna/20080726153624/http://www.integrationandcohesion.org.uk/~/media/assets/www.integrationandcohesion.org.uk/community_cohesion_and_the_public_interest%20pdf.ashx