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Brief interactions can strengthen connection and trust at work.

Employees who feel cared for report a stronger sense of community.

Care is shown through attention, follow-up, and support.

When was the last time you followed up with a colleague about something personal they mentioned in passing? A race they were training for. A book or TV show they were excited about. A weekend that felt big in some small way.

These moments are easy to overlook. Work moves fast with back-to-back meetings and pressing deadlines. Yet when someone circles back and asks, “How did it go?” something meaningful shifts. You feel remembered. You feel seen.

In his widely viewed 2022 TED Talk, Dan Harris describes love as the human capacity to care. He sees it as our instinct to cooperate and our willingness to extend warmth. From an evolutionary perspective, that capacity helped our species survive.

That same capacity shows up in the workplace every day. In our research, one of the strongest drivers of meaning we identified was a sense of community. Community is the experience of feeling known, welcomed, and respected. It reflects whether people believe they matter to the people around them.

One survey question in our study stood out. When employees were asked whether their leader cared about what was happening in their lives outside of work, that single item strongly predicted their overall sense of community.

Care Is Practiced in Small Moments

Care often appears in small acts of attention. It lives in remembering a detail someone shared and asking about it later. It shows up in following through on a conversation or making room for someone’s full life to exist alongside their role.

One misconception we often hear is that caring at work means oversharing, prying, or turning professional spaces into therapy sessions. That is not what this is about. Care is demonstrated through steady, respectful attention. It is expressed through curiosity and follow-up, not intrusion.

Our brains are exquisitely sensitive to these signals. Research in social neuroscience has shown that social rejection activates some of the same neural regions as physical pain. Just as our bodies signal thirst or hunger, our brains signal when we are lacking connection. That signal is loneliness.

The U.S. Surgeon General’s 2024 advisory on loneliness documented the serious health consequences of chronic social disconnection, linking it to increased risk of heart disease, depression, and premature mortality.

Work cannot resolve the loneliness crisis on its own. It does, however, shape the relational climate for millions of people every day. In our research, leaders explained nearly half of the variance in employees’ reported experience of meaningful work.

Much of that influence traced back to relational behavior. Leaders who notice effort, follow up, invite perspective, and make people feel visible create meaning at work. This is where love lives at work—in the daily practice of care.

The Forest of Community

In a healthy forest, trees are not isolated competitors. Beneath the surface, their roots are connected through vast underground networks. Through these networks, trees pass nutrients to one another, send stress signals when they are under threat, and even redistribute resources to neighbors that are struggling. Larger, older trees sometimes act as hubs within this system, supporting seedlings and helping stabilize the surrounding ecosystem. The resilience of the forest comes from this web of connection.

The most meaningful organizations we studied function in a similar way. We sometimes refer to them as “super organizations,” borrowing from the idea of “superorganisms” in nature. In these workplaces, the strongest teams are not simply collections of high performers. They operate as interconnected systems. People share information freely. They lift one another up. They step in when someone is overloaded. They collaborate rather than hoard.

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That interconnectedness is cultivated through daily behavior. When a leader follows up about something that matters in an employee’s life, it reinforces that invisible network. When a colleague offers help before being asked, it strengthens the roots. When someone shares a personal story and is met with curiosity instead of dismissal, the system becomes more resilient.

Care moves through organizations the way nutrients move through a forest. It is often unseen, but it changes what is possible above ground.

Strengthening the Roots

If love is the capacity to care, then community is what happens when that capacity is practiced repeatedly at work. Here are three ways to make that practice visible.

1. Begin with attention.

Follow up on something personal that someone shared. If a colleague mentioned a race, ask how it went. If they were worried about a family member, check in the next week. These gestures take less time than we imagine, yet they signal that people matter beyond their deliverables.

Research on high-quality connections supports this. Jane Dutton and her colleagues have shown that even brief interactions can create what they call high-quality connections, marked by mutual regard, trust, and a sense of vitality. Some studies suggest that interactions as short as 40 seconds can generate measurable shifts in energy and connection. These micro-moments accumulate. They shape how people experience the workplace over time.2. Create space for everyday storytelling.

Community deepens when people are able to bring small, authentic parts of themselves into the room. This does not require long personal disclosures or emotional oversharing. It often begins with something simple and brief.

Leaders shape what feels allowed. When a leader shares a short story about a value they are trying to live into, a lesson they learned the hard way, or a tradition that matters to them, it signals that work is not a place where people must narrow who they are. That signal lowers the quiet pressure many people feel to edit themselves.

The practice also involves invitation. Opening a meeting with a thoughtful question. Asking what has been shaping someone’s thinking lately. Noticing a guitar in the background of a Zoom call and asking about it with genuine curiosity. These moments communicate that identity is welcome.

Over time, this kind of relational space changes the tone of collaboration. When individuals feel known beyond their output, participation becomes more natural. The energy that might otherwise be spent on self-protection can be redirected toward creativity and contribution.

3. Demonstrate benevolence in visible ways.

Benevolence is the belief that someone genuinely has your best interests at heart. In practice, that belief forms when people experience support that is specific and consistent.

This can take many forms. Sharing an article that made you think of a colleague and their goals. Making an introduction that could help someone expand their network. Offering feedback that is both honest and encouraging. Asking how you can support someone before a big presentation or stepping in to remove an obstacle that is slowing them down.

It also includes giving credit generously. Naming someone’s contribution in a meeting. Acknowledging the effort behind the result. Expressing appreciation in a way that is concrete rather than generic.

Over time, these actions strengthen trust and reinforce the sense that people are part of an interconnected system rather than competing individuals

In a month devoted to love, the workplace offers an unexpected opportunity to practice care deliberately. To strengthen the roots. To create conditions where people feel known and valued. Meaningful work grows there.

© Psychology Today