The UK’s Covid-lockdown restrictions considerably impacted people’s jobs, careers, workplace norms and social lives, and it looks as though the echo of these changes will remain with us for years to come.

People in the UK are still spending more time at home and less in the office according to data from Google’s community mobility reports. While there has been some recovery in footfall at stations and workplaces since the first lockdown, recent figures for the week to 11 February 2022, show that activity still remains at 21% below pre-pandemic levels.

Furlough and working online created a sense of isolation for many, while others who returned to work have since struggled to find inspiration and purpose.

In 2020, 37% of working UK adults did at least some work from home, up from 27% the previous year, and after years of home-working even high performers are feeling sluggish.

A significant business outcome is that many workers are continuing to actively look for new jobs and careers, while others plan to stay with their current companies and try to find renewed sense, value and meaning in their roles at work.

The quest for meaning at work

At the heart of this process is a desire to uncover “meaningfulness” at work, based on experiences that make a deep impact and hold significant value to us.

This shapes feelings of worthiness and significance, which can be shared to help individuals and teams effectively support and pursue joint goals, something which can be further expressed as organisational accomplishments, values and rituals that transform into employee action.

Meaningfulness is viewed as the act of having clear direction and possessing a sense of value at work. This has long been considered a cure-all to the alienation and lack of social and ethical standards that often infect workers employed in mundane routines.

The process can be experienced in many different ways, ranging from carrying out discrete everyday tasks or personal projects, through to broader concerns, such as considering the purpose of an overall job or planning out a career.

It’s quite clear that meaningfulness moulds identity, psychological need and provides the basis for “sensemaking” which enables individuals to better understand their specific function at work and wider strategic value.

The pandemic has shown that innovation and the application of new ideas, processes, products, services and procedures has become crucial to UK competitiveness and survival.

Organisations are collectivist by nature and are sustained through joint effort. Growth comes from a shared set of values through which businesses nurture as a means of realising opportunity for continuous development, learning and becoming sharper.

Workplace rituals shape mindset

It might not be obvious, but the workplace is a traditional hub of interactive “rituals” which establish mutually focused attention.

At a basic level these rituals revolve around daily activities, such as how one starts and ends the working day, or how we communicate in work-groups to ensure that everyone can catch-up together, whether this is over coffee or with a drink after work on a Friday.

Similarly, inviting clients into the company’s offices and hosting a meeting in the boardroom with refreshments is a ritual that hasn’t changed since the early days of corporate life.

All of these ritualistic interactions surface emotions that create a shared sense of meaningfulness and mindset.

A shared sense of meaningfulness permits collective validation of particular norms or activities. Encounters vary in terms of producing desired outcomes and depend largely on how well received the interaction is, and the circumstances under which it occurs.

Rituals also have a symbolic effect that can embody the values of the organisation, depending on employees’ active participation in them, and possess manifest and latent purposes.

The manifest function of a ritual contributes to the building of shared meaning at work, helping the organisation achieve its mission and providing the basis for the accomplishment of daily tasks. The latent purpose becomes evident through the celebration of valued memories or events.

Ritualistic encounters shape meaningfulness by infusing leadership with a sense of moral and common purpose. This has a double-impact—while employees develop a shared sense of the organisation’s activities, meaningfulness becomes a unified goal for employees.

How ‘what we do’ becomes meaningful

It should be noted that establishing rituals that enable shared interactions requires participation and such experience are very difficult to create using an online environment. A shared sense of meaningfulness requires shared experiences.

If an action is felt as an individual, instead of a collective experience, growing shared meaning is diminished.

For interaction rituals to effectively trigger and drive emotional energy through action, a leaders’ emotions need to be visible.

This gives employees “permission” to share emotional energy through talk and gesture, and in doing so develop shared feelings of meaningfulness. Leaders establish comparative meaningfulness through representation and by linking words which promote or demote shared feelings.

Formal rituals create shared meaning, while situational encounters vary in effectiveness, often because of the close occurrence of different things, the minimisation of barriers to outsiders, mutual focus of attention and shared mood.

When employees are brought together in a ritual they are united emotionally. Their energy is focused on the values the organisation embraces and holds dear. Rituals also allow non-members to become members, and can transform conflict within the organisation into harmony. In other cases, those who are inhibited by change can embrace it as their fear diminishes.

Situations containing all four characteristics—in-person co-presence, minimising barriers to outsiders, a mutual focus of attention and shared mood—lead participants to become rhythmically synchronised, producing “collective effervescence”, an energy which enhances the confidence needed by teams to take action and initiative.

This is all deeply immersive and makes the individual feel positive and exalted, with an accompanying sense of focus on the company’s most important and valuable acts, a profoundly satisfying and motivating experience forming chains of exchange which become habitual.

The power of ritualistic emotional energy is well known and documented in religious and social movements. This is especially true when nurturing a group identity that complements individuals to move forward as a collaborative unit.

Ritual effectiveness

Rituals can vary in their effectiveness and for this reason, many organisations draw on a variety, which may include sport or charitable activities that enable employees to participate and encourage the sharing of joy, compassion or even hardship—all with the purpose of creating solidarity.

Despite these ambitions the Covid pandemic has changed many mainstays of office tradition, replacing them with the new ritual of Zoom, Teams or Google Meet gatherings.

Many critics of boardroom behaviours and privileges suggest abandoning “high church” rituals, such as “wasting” the first half-hour of a meeting’s review of minutes and matters arising.

However, these rituals set the scene for rich conversions during the remainder of the board meeting. Going over the minutes allows the chair to establish order and control over the board directors. The downside is that, done in excess, the order-giving process can limit, rather than free-up conversation.

It is unlikely that interactive conduct in the workplace will fully return to pre-Covid ways, if for no other reason than video-meeting platforms are efficient methods of contact. But what about effectiveness? What about that binding nature that enables organisations to become quicker, smarter and better than their competition?

That smart cohesive nature does not arise from clear expression alone. It requires the meaningfulness that people attribute to their workplace.

Whatever balance each organisation determines between virtual and face-to-face encounters, we should not underestimate the direct and indirect impact of rituals and meaningfulness. This is the cohesive glue that binds all together in the delivery of organisational purpose.

Nada Kakabadse is professor of policy, governance and ethics, and Andrew Kakabadse is professor of governance and leadership, at Henley Business School.