A workplace is clearly not just a place where something called 'work' goes on. As people are involved, it is a kind of society, just as a village or a family is. Since we spend one-third of our time in the workplace nearly everyday, it is important to ensure that we find happiness in our workplace, and preferably grow with it from time to time. After all, when we retire our life will still be closely related to it, through pension links, friends, memories and experiences.

Workplaces are communities that are associated with organizations, and in some way provide examples of the concept of the family. As a community, every workplace has its own culture, which is the common experience shared by all members, or passed on from one member to another. Members of the workplace community often have sets of rules and regulations special to themselves.

Within the workplace community, there are formal and informal organizations. The formal organizations will have a pattern, with lines of communication, levels for making decisions and perhaps different clusters of employees. Within the formal organizations, there will be an informal pattern of communication between colleagues, friends, lunchtime groups, sports groups, and other social contacts. Members of these groups may have gathered to fulfill a need, or may have developed to get results as the formal official ways do not seem to work well in the organization.

In your workplace, you may be seen as a member closely associated with a formal organization, or having significant influence to a particular informal group. As an individual, you may also be marked off from other inferior or superior groups and accorded a different amount of prestige. For instance, you may be a white collar that distinguished you from blue collar or production workers. You may be a skilled and trained professional as compared to those semi-skilled and do not possess high qualifications.

In other words, your job positioning, the amount of money it carries, its place in the organization's hierarchy, the skill or responsibility required, the nature of the work – all these can affect your status, or the way other members of the workplace view you in their social setting.

Besides, through your job and how you do your work – your honesty, pleasantness, initiatives, willingness to help, being a reliable source of information, how you act as a union member or a manager, can affect your status. Notice that the first set of factors go with the job, the second set comes from your own behaviour, and they both depend on how different people rate these characteristics.

By viewing workplace as community, an employee shares the mindset, corporate goals and visions with other members. You tend to abide by the rules set forth by the management and resist disciplinary wrong-doings by members in the community. From the organization's point of view, you may want to join groups that are of your interest, and develop close relationships with other members within the same group. As a member of the family, you may even find a sense of belonging that enables you to safeguard the well-being of the company, or sacrifice for other family members without even giving a second thought to it. Viewing the workplace as your family is indeed the mission of most HR personnel of today.