Stay Classy San Diego: Facebook Group Changes Needed for the CW6 Employees to Remain Bonded
When you start a new job you are thrown into the culture at the workplace. They could have potlucks every week (pre-covid obviously) fostering coworkers to catch up on each other’s life, or you could work with others in your same age group, and maybe it is a stress-free environment so employees tend to stay at that company. Every place I have worked, there is a camaraderie that forms with coworkers. Workplaces are creating their own face to face communities that bond employees for life. Over the years this bond has grown on to online platforms as well. Yet, they never match the feeling of being face to face (at least in my experience as a Millennial).
My favorite place I worked was at CW6 in San Diego. It did not have the newest building or fanciest news set. We were not number 1 in the rankings, and we were paid below market value. There were no perks like free dry cleaning or gym memberships. What made the station so enjoyable to work at was the workplace environment that helped build friendships. I was the chief meteorologist and our anchor became my best friend. I enjoyed walking in to work every day to see our OCD director, quirky producer, and understanding assignment editor. (For comparison, my other former news stations had fight instigating reporters, verbal abusive anchors, and condescending managers.) We all thought about leaving for higher pay, but we truly loved our work community, we were hesitant about leaving our superb work culture.
What worked for our face to face co worker community were numerous after work dinner and drink outings. This allowed us to learn about each others families, tattoos, past work experiences. We were talking, listening, and engaging. We had a team competition of airing no mistakes for a week. When we worked together toward 1 goal (proving we were just as good as other stations), we felt responsible for each other and gave us a purpose bigger than just ourselves. We all knew everyone of us was underpaid, so we often shared insights of job openings with each other, or negotiation ideas.
CW6 was a well functioning face to face work community. It is the news business so we were all accustomed to real-time problem-solving (like when the automated cameras die) and are more flexible and responsive to changing demands (breaking news changes everyone’s job assignment). SHRM notes that is 1 of the characteristics for developing high performance work teams. Here are some other examples:
- A deep sense of purpose and commitment to the team’s members and to the mission. (We all wanted a flawless show, and when it didn’t happen, we felt each other’s pain, addressed the conflict and tried to problem solve how to prevent it in the future.)
- Relatively more ambitious performance goals than average teams. (We wanted to prove to other stations, that we were good at what we did and could be one of the top three news stations in San Diego.)
- Mutual accountability and a clear understanding of members’ responsibilities to the team and individual obligations.
- A diverse range of expertise that complements other team members’ abilities.
- Interdependence and trust between members. (All those late nights talking really paid off here!)
CW6 lost its CW affiliation and was purchased by the CBS affiliate. As a result, our company closed its doors and most of the CW crew got jobs at other San Diego news stations. The face to face community did not work so well as we evolved and moved to the Facebook platform. A hidden private group emerged with former employees and other news employees in the San Diego TV market. The group posted hang out times and places, but the sense of camaraderie was gone.
For other online communities, they form on the internet first, and then meet in person. Researchers Grabher and Ibert found face-face-meetings were intended to compensate for shortcomings of online interaction with regard to exchange knowledge, ponder over ideas, or furnish joint projects. Rather than for exchanging knowledge, we found that personal meetings were mainly intended to maintain motivation and to strengthen the social cohesion of the community. Thus the whole online San Diego TV News community would benefit if it carried over from face to face practices into virtual groups.
- Be generous with your time. Check in with the group weekly.
- Interact and engage with members as if it is a chat at the bar after work.
- Trust new members in the group (as if they were coworkers). We all have the something to bond over.
- Work to make all news stations better, ideas on different camera shots to try or a showcase of talent in other cities that you think would be great to add to SD.
- Showcase a good story or weather report to offer praise and everyone can learn something.
The station dismantled in 2017, yet the group can remain intact while expanding thanks to Facebook groups and being an active member within the group.
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