Employees can feel connected to the company they work for, but that is only one of the groups they belong to at work.
Departments, teams and smaller working groups create their own sense of identity, often built through daily interactions and shared responsibilities.
Research suggests employees may identify more strongly with these immediate groups than with the larger organization, which can shape how people collaborate, share information and understand company priorities.
Why It Matters: Technology organizations depend on specialized teams that still need to work closely with one another. AI, cybersecurity, cloud and data initiatives regularly cross departmental lines, making cooperation between groups part of how the work gets done. When employees understand how their team contributes to larger business goals, strong team relationships can support the organization without becoming a barrier between functions.
- People Form Group Loyalties Easily: Social psychologist Henri Tajfel demonstrated what became known as the “minimal group effect” by separating strangers based on arbitrary criteria, including their estimates of dots on a chart and preferences for abstract art. Participants still began favoring members of their assigned group when distributing rewards. The findings showed that people do not need much history or common ground before a sense of belonging begins to influence their behavior.
- The Immediate Team Often Feels More Personal: A meta-analysis found that employees, on average, identify more strongly with their work group than with the organization as a whole. Daily experience helps explain why. People on the same team share meetings, deadlines, setbacks and accomplishments, while their connection to a large organization can be less direct.
- Team Identity Can Influence How Employees See the Company: Strong relationships within a group can make it easier to collaborate with close colleagues, but they can also affect how other departments are viewed. Budget decisions may be interpreted through what a team gains or loses, information can remain within a function and problems may be attributed to another group. One study also found that stronger identification with a work group was associated with a weaker understanding of the organization’s overall strategy.
- A Larger Shared Identity Can Help Connect Groups: Researchers illustrated this with an experiment involving Manchester United supporters. Fans were initially more likely to help someone wearing a Manchester United shirt than someone wearing a rival Liverpool shirt. When participants were instead encouraged to think of themselves more generally as football fans, they became equally likely to help someone wearing either team’s shirt. The smaller identity remained, but the larger one gave the two groups something in common.
- Organizations Can Create More Opportunities to Work Across Teams: Cross-functional projects, regular interaction and shared experiences can help employees build relationships outside the groups they work with every day. It also helps when people can see how their responsibilities connect to company goals. The goal is not to weaken the relationships within individual teams, but to give those teams enough shared purpose to work well together across the organization.
Go Deeper -> Are you committed to your company or your team? – The Economist
