The new post-pandemic workplace: on the relationship between relational civility and workplace social inclusion – a necessary condition analysis

Purpose This paper aims to empirically establish necessity conditions within a relational context. The formulated necessary condition-based hypotheses are drawn from and are anchored in extant relational and psychology literature. The authors focus on three relational dimensions that have attracted considerable attention – relational culture, relational decency (RD) and relational readiness, as well as on workplace social inclusion. The three relational dimensions serve as the study’s independent variables as the authors explore their necessity for workplace social inclusion. Design/methodology/approach This study seeks to explore the civility dimensions of RD, culture and readiness, as defined by the workplace relational civility index and examine just how necessary they are for workplace social inclusion. Drawing on a sample of 160 employees from various industries, and using necessary condition analysis (NCA) to revisit key relational dimensions and the extent to which they are necessary for heightened social inclusion. Because NCA is fundamentally a bivariate analysis method, with only one X and Y being analyzed at a time, the method generates unique quantified parameters that allow for the selection of only those variables that meet necessity conditions for a desired level of an outcome. Findings Drawing on a sample of 160 employees from various industries, and using NCA, the authors find support for two out of three hypotheses. Specifically, a high level of RD and readiness emerge as statistically significant conditions that are necessary for a high level of social inclusion in today’s workplace. Relational culture emerged as an insignificant condition and thus appears to be unnecessary for ensuring high level of social inclusion. Research limitations/implications This study was limited to self-report measures, which are subject to recall and response bias. In addition, the sample size ( n = 160), while robust, cannot be reliably used to make inferences about the greater population. Practical implications These results have practical implications for leaders, who are faced with managing a post-pandemic workforce that has presented some serious organization-level challenges. Workers who are in demand to fill new and existing jobs are leaving their current jobs in unprecedented numbers, making it necessary to consider new ways to attract and retain them. This research points to the importance of individual-level civility as a foundation for fostering an organizational culture of inclusion, employee job satisfaction and retention. Social implications In the sample of professional workers, capitalizing on behaviors that reinforce and promote decency and readiness may appear sufficient for social inclusion, yet they ought to be complemented by further nurturing, training and crafting of policies that safeguard inclusion. Both decency and readiness related behaviors emerge as priorities for in-house training and coaching that managers across industries cannot, and should not, ignore. Originality/value Workplace social inclusion as an outcome, is the study’s dependent variable. Although these capabilities are conceptually and empirically studied by several works, as the authors discuss next, most reported findings have been correlational in nature. Namely, they explored the average effect of a single variable, or the average effect of a combination of relational variables, on different outcomes. Yet, our review of the literature suggests that no empirical study has employed NCA as a research method, making our current effort a modest attempt to apply NCA to the relational field.