How bonded are your employees to your organisation? Do you have an employee bonding process in place and are you doing employee bonding activities? These are important questions because recruitment is starting to pick up and talent drain is predicted to be the number one problem affecting organisations in 2011.   

Bonding means unity - everyone glued together, but there need to be things to create the 'glue' as there have been many things to 'unstick' unity in 2010; redundancies; bosses getting a pay rise when employees get none; stress and tiredness building from employees doing more than one job; learning and development cuts; promotion bottlenecks with people staying in their jobs rather than moving on.

So how do you know what employee bonding activities to do and what is a good employee bonding process? A good lateral metaphor to explore is healthy relationships. What creates a good relationship - a couple or family that makes you feel bonded and want to stay and work at it, rather than withdraw and opt out, spending time elsewhere? Enjoyment; humour; knowing that you are important and with no doubt that you are a priority; feeling acknowledged; open communication; common goals that you feel committed to working towards together through thick and thin; occasions to create bonding and feel and remain connected; a clear identity; rituals that you look forward to and contribute to making special; a clear role that works for everyone, with mutual respect; clearly defined boundaries; repeated activities that create a connection. Now ask yourself to what degree your organisation does and has these things.

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